The Pursuit of Peace
by The Benevolent Scriber
Summary: Sarutobi in an effort to hide Naruto from the Fourth's enemies within the village and without, secrets him away with the fire temple monks. In doing so he unknowingly starts a chain of events that ultimately ends in destruction. M for Gore and Ninja evils. Pairing is secret for now.
1. Chapter 1: And So Life Passes

Chapter 1: And So Life Passes

It was the early morning and the birds were singing their springtime song, the many cherry blossom trees of the temple were newly bursting with beautiful pink petals. The ancient pockmarked stones and wooden pillars of the temple seemed to rejuvenate in the dancing sunlight. The birds perched along the old sloping roof top trilling their songs, sometimes they would stare down at the odd beings moving around in the early hours of the morning.

A single withered looking monk dressing in slightly rumpled white robes brushed at the pave stones seeking to clean away some perceived dirt. He shambled to and fro and every so often took a moment to look at the birds and the sky. Deep thoughts circled in his mind worry being the most prominent in his thoughts, worry for the future of the temple and his charges.

As the days stretched out in his mind, the future looked bleak to the old monk. He could remember the times when the villages were first formed, and that war had been so common then. The need to pit strength against strength seemed to be a natural state of being for humans, a need to match hate with hate. Now it seemed those days would return again.

His name was Konorugi and he was a keeper of a small out of the way temple in northern fire country. Only a few acolytes studied or communed here, it was nothing like the main temple near the capital which was always busy with a great number of ninja monks.

The old monk paused as he stared down into a small pond filled with smallish koi, they would need feeding for certain. He nearly shied away from his reflection, his bald wrinkly face only serving a reminder of how truly bone achingly old he was. His mind returned to current events such as they were.

Konoha had been in the midst of tense diplomatic negotiations with Kumogakure, Kumo it seems decided to try and use the free opportunity of access to the leaf village to 'acquire' certain bloodlines, the most obvious one being that of the Hyuuga's Byakugan. The situation had quickly spiralled out of control, the ambassador from Kumo had ended up dead and the Hyuuga had been forced to sacrifice one of their own to smooth over feathers. That would have been the end of it but for one very important piece of information that Kumo gained.

Konoha's Jinchūriki was nowhere to be found in the village, it eventually came out that one of the delegation sent to Konoha was prodigy sensor whose task was to assess the strength of Konoha's container and to verify the Kyuubi's presence. The problem with this was that Kumo now believed that the Fourth Hokage had indeed _killed_ the Kyuubi as Konoha proclaimed to the masses. They believed it would leave the village without the powerful deterrent for years if not decades with no guarantee of the Kyuubi being recaptured.

In their eyes Konoha was as vulnerable as it had ever been and it seemed it was too late to fix.

It might be wondered why Konorugi would know anything at all about the intricacies of ninja politics, indeed what business of his would it be? It was his business because he was the caretaker of Konoha's Jinchūriki, one Uzumaki Naruto.

He had received a messenger hawk only yesterday night detailing everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Sarutobi had made a mistake, he had never accounted for the possibility that someone would realise that the Jinchūriki was absent, proving otherwise would be impossible now. Even if Naruto took up residency in Konoha it was too late already, Kumo was already certain in its Intel and any counter intelligence would likely fall on deaf ears.

It seemed both countries were getting into an alert posture, already several minor incidents had occurred on the border. Merchant caravans going missing and trade had reduced to the point where it was rare to see goods from the land of lightning.

It seemed a terrible war was a very real possibility.

Konorugi sighed and looked up into the clear blue sky, he prayed with all his might that he would not live to see a fourth shinobi world war.

The tinkling of childish laughter lilted into the air, the dual shouts of both joy and frustration grew louder as the white and yellow blur launched itself out of the temple and into the daylight.

"YAHOOO!"

Spiky yellow hair glinted in the light as the young child leaped clean over the old monk. Clutched in his fists was a set of monk robes coloured bright blotchy pink. The child proceeded to swing the clothes like a flag of conquering glory.

"GET BACK HERE!"

A screaming monk of almost purple complexion thundered after the boy in his small cloths. The elderly monk noticed the man had two sets of delightfully painted whiskers adorning his cheeks. He could only press his wizened fingers to his temples to slowly message them, why was he always so loud in the morning? That boy had the energy of thirty grown monks put together!

To his failing eyes the two blurry figures raced around the once peaceful courtyard, across finely kept grass and rock gardens. The old monk could only sigh internally, it was a song and dance often acted out when new ninja monks visited.

"That's enough Naruto-kun! Give Reijiro his robe back and complete your morning meditations, think on your actions. You will give me an explanation afterwards." The old monk's voice was as dry as the desert, almost as desiccated as his own features.

They both froze in mid movement, one set of features mortified while the other sullen and pouty.

"Fine..."

Naruto tossed the robes to the half-naked monk and trudged back into the small temple, most likely he would sulk for a while before apologising. Reijiro however had no excuse for rising to the child's provocations, Naruto was a high strung child often given to his passions as was only natural. As a fully trained ninja monk Reijiro had no excuse for losing composure.

"I apologise master…I lost my peaceful center." He bowed at a steep angle before disappearing from his sight. Children now days, always so flighty and careless. He could remember when this world squashed that innocence as a matter of course…it just made him feel so very tired.

Naruto was a bright boy if a bit maddening in his temperament, he also couldn't stand the stiff discipline of the ninja monks. He had no patience for the long periods of contemplation often fidgeting uncontrollably or day dreaming.

As for the boy's training Sarutobi had asked that he teach him at the very least the basics as at the time he had envisioned that the boy would return to the village to join the ninja academy to complete his training. He tried his very hardest to instil as much morality and philosophy into his mind, after all a Jinchūriki could wield great power and he only hoped Naruto would wield it for the right reasons and not for war or simple destruction.

It seemed that Naruto would be leaving this place for better or worse, he just hoped the boy could understand.

* * *

The six year old yellow haired boy dressed in a loose fitting white robe sat stiff backed in front of the shrine glaring up at the funny looking images of gods with ringed eyes. The room smelled of incense and herbal candles, Jii-chan always had those stupid things burning in this room.

Naruto pouted with all his might, that stupid monk deserved it all right! Always so stiff and lifeless, he couldn't stand it when people didn't show their true feelings! He could tell when people didn't say or do what they truly meant, he didn't understand why everyone always hid their thoughts and feelings. The only one that didn't was Jii-chan, he would tell him exactly what he thought and felt about his actions.

Okay fine, maybe he shouldn't have messed with the guy's robes, but when he arrived that guy was so stuffy he couldn't stand it. Just a little prank to set the blood flowing, force him to come alive!

He was probably going to have clean out the koi ponds or clean all the laundry for certain after this. Jii-chan always had some kind of ironic punishment…like the last time he had done some graffiti in the small village nearby he had made him clean the whole village, every wall and house! Come on Sonogi village was so _grey_ and boring, it needed some colour!

Either that or he would have to endure another of Jii-chan's long lectures about…well stuff in general, he didn't always understand it all but the old man said he would eventually. Naruto just took him at his word.

He scratched at his spiky hair and rested back on his elbows as he looked up at the redwood ceiling. He had been here as long as he could remember with the old man looking after him, training him and teaching him about the world. From what Jii-chan had told him he was a native of Konoha, the ninja village. As to why he was here the old man only said that as an orphan he had been brought to the temple after the Kyuubi attack because there hadn't been enough room and the orphanages to go around.

Naruto often wondered about his parents, obviously they had died in the Kyuubi attack but what had they been like? Had they been awesome ninja? Or just a regular family trying to make a living? From what he could understand the Kyuubi had made no distinction in its wholesale destruction.

Maybe he would go to Konoha and visit to see if anyone knew of them? That was definitely on the list of things he wanted to do, that and travel the world. He had spent so much time hearing about all the wonderful things in the world, about the different peoples and nations that he wanted to see it for himself!

Still that was sometime down the line, he still needed to finish his learning then he could journey out into the world. There were so many different lands he could visit he couldn't wait! The legendary ones interested him the most for certain!

He glanced around as a few of the guests started morning prayers, one or two monks and some others guests from the surrounding villages. He sighed, he supposed he better start getting the morning offerings completed. Jii-chan would be even madder if he didn't do that.

He sometimes wondered about the visitors the temple would get, some of them were super weird and not just ninja monk weird. Sometimes civilians would visit the temple but there were the odd few times you would get a real weirdo that stuck out somehow. Naruto couldn't really explain it other than it felt like they were pretending somehow. He always made a point to stay clear of those ones.

He made the finishing touches on the shrine and went to sit on the outside veranda. Jii-chan was just finishing up, he putting his broom away in the tools shed. Slowly the man made his way to the front steps of the temple, he sat down next to him and stared forward.

"Naruto will you ever learn not to antagonise people you have only just met? Tell me did you do the right thing?" The old man spoke without inflection or indication of disappointment.

"Jii-san…he was being snobby all last night, acting like we're second rate monks just because we're not from the main temple!" Naruto felt the need to defend his actions even if he accepted that it wasn't exactly correct.

"And is that our problem or his own?" Naruto frowned in confusion as Konorugi continued, "Everyone is on their own individual journey to enlightenment, and did your actions in any way aid that progress?"

"….No, but…" Naruto looked down eyes shutting into slits.

"What would have made him realise that his perceptions were wrong? What would have made him look inward and reassess his beliefs?"

"….I guess, showing otherwise, proving that we weren't as he believed." Naruto looked even glummer at the admission.

"Indeed...lashing out will never change anyone's mind. You must show them the truth through action, conviction and belief. Set an example and people will understand." The old man smiled to himself, it was a lesson they often considered in contemplation. He just hoped Naruto would take it to heart.

"Now…you must clean every koi pond today and the bronze idols. Consider it penance for your actions." The old man seemed to hesitate before standing, "And Naruto…we have a lot to talk about tonight, join me inside when you are finished."

Naruto frowned as he watched the old man go inside the temple. That was strange, he had never seen Jii-chan look so uncertain before…

* * *

The wind blew quietly during the evening, leaves danced on the air having parted company with their homes. The sun was making its slow way down to the horizon as nightfall approached.

A silent shadow watched the temple from the treeline, wolf's job was a simple one. Stop all foreign or unauthorised intruders from reaching the temple, for the ANBU of Konoha it was considered a punishment detail which involved countless hours of watching a blond kid wreak merry hell on the surrounding countryside.

If Wolf was honest it did have its amusing moments considering the trouble the kid could get into, and the upside was that he didn't have to go on dangerous missions for a time. Still it could get very tedious such as in this occasion. The boy had been working all day cleaning out the various ponds on the grounds. Watching him battle with the slippery koi had been amusing to see all things considered but it still didn't make up for the monotony.

He cast his mind to recent events, it was bad all things considered. The elemental nations were now in a state of diplomatic turmoil, Kumo now believed that Konoha's Jinchūriki did not exist, that the village had lost the Kyuubi when the Fourth "killed" it. Indeed the Anbu doubted that Kyuubi had ever been damaged enough by any ninja no matter their strength to force it to reform. Truly the Fourth's inflated reputation really wasn't doing Konoha any favours in this case.

Of course the backroom allegations were refuted by Sarutobi-sama but it was proving otherwise that was the problem. From what he had heard a plan was in the works to "demonstrate" the Kyuubi's power. How that could happen he had no idea, Uzumaki was mostly untrained and didn't even have any idea of what he contained. Even if they captured a Kumo sensor and exposed them to Uzumaki Kumo would simply believe that the sensor ninja had been comprised with miss-information.

In the meantime everything was beginning to heat up, more ANBU scout missions and minor proxy skirmishes using disguised ninjas. The bread and butter of a run up to war, a war that could trigger a fourth shinobi world war. He had lived through the third and it was only the Fourth's absurd skill with the Hiraishin that it had ended so quickly. While its effectiveness decreased with the skill of the victim the vast majority of the foreign ninja forces were made up of ninja of limited skill, lambs to the slaughter against a technique like that.

Another war would be fought the hard way. With no upcoming prodigies with the skills needed to wreak mass scale slaughter of that nature a new war would be fought kunai to kunai. In other words a long slog against what could be argued as the most dangerous of the hidden villages to date.

With two fully realized Jinchūriki capable of controlling their biju forms the possibility of defeating Kumo seemed remote with the current standards of Konoha ninja forces. Wolf's black thoughts were interrupted by an incoming source of chakra, several in fact.

He waited patiently, the chakra signatures seemed unhurried and were keeping a reasonable pace. Still he readied himself by hiding his chakra more tightly. Several masked ANBU members appeared around him on various tree branches. He noticed that the masks were completely blank, no animal signatures with a single "Ne" marking. Root? There were rumours of course about the super black ops division, but weren't they disbanded by Sarutobi-sama?

"Anbu-san you are dismissed, we will take it from here on orders from the Hokage." The lead ninja joined him on the same tree branch. He was clad in regular Anbu armour with a back mounted tanto blade.

"…Do you have written orders from Sarutobi-sama?" He glanced around rest of the squad, they were paying no notice to the conversation, seemingly all of their eyes were on the temple in the distance.

"Of course…" The man pulled out a scroll and handed it over, "Everything is in order."

Wolf opened the scroll carefully and quickly read the contents, it was a simple recall message with the Hokage's seal and signature. A small touch of chakra verified its authenticity. "I see, I will leave you to your mission then."

"Please do Anbu-san, we have a busy night ahead of us…"

The surrounding Anbu abruptly disappeared into blurring shadows leaving behind a very mystified and concerned Wolf. He could tell by their manner and purpose that they were indeed sanctioned by the Hokage, but he had a bad feeling that this was what he had heard about. A plan to demonstrate the Kyuubi's power.

He wished he could do something but he was under direct orders. He just hoped Hokage-sama was making the right decision.

* * *

"Naruto-kun….come sit with me."

The old man sat in seiza next to the small fire pit, the day's activities had finished some hours ago. The rest of the guests at the temple having long since retired to their rooms. Naruto sat down opposite him with none of the same poise and grace. He raised a concerned look towards his caretaker.

"What is it Jii-san…you mentioned something about this in the morning…"

The old man seemed to slump slightly in his stance, slipping into more of a slouch than the uncomfortable rigidity of seiza.

"You have asked before about where you come from…I'm sorry Naruto…but I never told you the full story." His gaze slipped down with his bowed head. Naruto wasn't sure what to say, he had kind of always suspected that maybe there was more to the story…

"It seems events have progressed beyond anyone's control. The truth is you were sent here to live with me not by mere chance. The leader of Konoha, Hiruzen Sarutobi the third Hokage, sent you here to be raised." Naruto's eyes were wide with attention, so maybe he suspected there was more to the story but for the _Hokage_ to be involved?

"He feared for your safety, that enemies of Konoha would try to hurt you, even kill you." Konorugi looked older than he ever had before in Naruto's eyes, but his burning questions would not wait.

"But…why? Konoha must have lots of enemies, why go after me?" Naruto could feel a sinking feeling approaching, he knew he wasn't going to like what was coming next.

"I'm sure you've heard the story of the Fouth Hokage killing the Kyuubi?" Frantic nodding was his response, "Well…that story is a lie, ninja know of no way to permanently kill a Biju, they can only be sealed in a mortal vessel for a time."

It took a moment for Naruto to understand what he was being told, and in a flash of certainty he realized the truth.

"I'm the vessel aren't I? That's what the weird inky thing on my stomach is whenever I channel my chakra!" His hand clenched around his abdomen imagining he could feel the mystic design burning on his skin.

Naruto didn't know how to feel…it all felt so distant to him, almost unreal. He had never imagined anything like this, even in his wildest fantasies. He had a Demon sealed inside of him, he didn't know what to think of that.

"It's safe right? I…I mean the Kyuubi can't get out can it? The fourth was really awesome that way wasn't he?"

"You are indeed the container of the Kyuubi and as far as my knowledge of seals stretches I believe it is safe as such a thing can be." The old man frowned and continued, "You still must be vigilant at all times Naruto, you have been given a great burden of power, using it without just cause could destroy everything you are."

A flash of fear spiked through Naruto's heart…he could _use_ it…as in the Kyuubi's power could come out? He might not know much about the Kyuubi but from the stories it was a renowned legendary monster of nigh impossible power. The idea that even a piece of that power could come out was…terrifying.

"Do not fear, should there come a time there will be those around you to help prevent any danger to yourself and others." The old man smiled slightly trying to convey a reassurance he wasn't sure he could offer.

"So…what happens now?" Naruto's dull gaze fell on the finely carved stone paving around the fire pit, it had small designs showing dancing flames. His hands slowly formed tight fists around his white robes.

"For now you must return to Konoha, there you will train in the Ninja academy, eventually you will choose either to become a Konoha ninja or a simple citizen." The third Hokage at the very least assured him it would be up to Naruto to make that choice.

Naruto supposed he should feel happy, getting the opportunity to train as a real ninja. He had always imagined his life would involve some travelling before trying to become a real fire temple monk. Sure he had imagined himself as this kick ass ninja warrior but somewhere inside him he knew it was just wishful thinking.

Now all he could think about was that he would be leaving his whole life behind. The temple, Jii-chan, the stupid grey villagers and all his favourite haunts in the forest.

"Sleep now and in the morning a ninja will be here to bring you to Konoha." Konorugi tried to smile reassuringly but Naruto could see even he was straining to put on a brave face.

The cinders of the fire pit had long since gone out leaving them in a cool darkness, Naruto couldn't even lift his gaze to look the old man in the eye. He knew he should feel angry at having his whole life just…change literally overnight. It was all happening so fast he wasn't sure if he even wanted to go to Konoha. If anything living with an elderly monk had taught him think more carefully about his choices.

Without a word Naruto left the old man to his thoughts and wandered into the main hall of the temple. He stared at the dark panelled wood in front of him as his bare feet padded on the polished wood.

A gentle creak sounded in the corridor ahead, his eyes snapped up in sudden focus. He had always hated the dark, living in a temple combined with all those ghost stories made him pretty jumpy at night.

For a moment he saw nothing but a black outline, but slowly he could make out the naked unsheathed blade before him and what looked like an inhumane creature holding it. Crouched low to the ground in a near animal like stance it looked ready to pounce.

He did the most natural thing for a six year old after that.

"JII-CHANNN!"

Which was screaming at the top of his lungs! The now human like creature lunged forward, the blade slicing through the air with almost impossible speed to his eyes. He fell backwards in a heap, his white robes cut away from his darker tunic. White hot adrenalin shot into his bloodstream and shocked his legs into movement.

Bucking quickly he took off at a mad dash down the corridor screaming his lungs out as he went. He could feel that dreadful shadow stalking him from every dark corner. He could hear the household rousing now, out of the corner of his eye he could see Reijiro and two other monks-in-training appear in their small clothes clutching long quarter staffs.

Naruto ran with all his might to the main shrine where his Jii-chan was, his body didn't know what else to do. Whatever that thing was he knew he couldn't fight it. He tripped and fell on one of the fancy rugs present in the main hall. Rolling to his feet he took a moment to look back.

He wished he hadn't.

His eyes went wide as he watched one of Reijiro's fellow monks split in two, a shower to blood and viscera splattered across the room in a macabre fountain. The terrible blood soaked blade responsible was still connected to the monster he had seen before, but this time he could see the monster clearly.

It wore a plain white mask and was man shaped, its body was covered in blood soaked panelled armour. The original colour might have been grey but the blood splatters had covered it from mask to toe.

Naruto could see Reijiro trying to confront another of these monsters attacking, his quarter staff sped quickly through the air in complex patterns. It seemed he was able to keep up with these creatures! Naruto felt hope in his chest as his prank victim beat back the masked horror.

Naruto's heart nearly stopped in his chest when another of the masked men appeared from thin air, its blade already descending with vicious speed. Naruto tried to make his body move to try and stop it but he couldn't move from the fear. Reijiro paid the price a moment later as his head was struck from his shoulders.

Naruto was paralysed, his eyes were locked open as he kneeled on the ground gazing forward sightlessly. His hands twitched at the gruesome sight. This was…what kind of evil was this? What monsters were they!

Tears leaked from his eyes as another attacker joined them, bringing the total up to three. They seemed to amble forward slowly without care. They froze the next moment, tense and prepared.

The space between them was filled in an instant as a figure wearing a long white robe appeared once again from nowhere.

"Jii-chan…." Naruto's voice was strangled with fear, he could barely speak never mind move.

"Ninja…ANBU…why have you done this?" Konorugi's voice was parched of all inflexion, his knees bent as he readied himself.

"…." There was no response from the faceless monsters…ninja he now knew.

"I see…"

The old man straightened settled into a taijutsu stance. Naruto could only feel fear for his Jii-chan, he was going to fight them all? After Reijiro and the others died? His eyes widened even further…he…he couldn't lose everyone!

"Naruto…Run." The next moment he was moving like a blur, his opponents also disappeared in a haze of high speed movement. The thumps of heavy blows meeting flesh filled Naruto's ears as he fought to control his own body. The next moment he pulled himself from the ground and started running as hard as he could.

He could barely see where he was going from the tears in his eyes, tripping over nearly everything between him and the rice paper sliding doors. A blur of half seen movement caught his eye just before his world turned to pain. A heavy armoured sandal met his face, the force threw him right off his feet, Naruto bounced twice before coming to a halt back where Jii-chan was fighting.

Groaning he forced himself to try and get up again, he could feel blood pouring from his nose and mouth choking him.

It took him a second to realise everything was silent, the sounds of fighting had stopped. His eyes widened as he looked up, the moon light was showing everything to his young eyes in sharp contrast.

His grandpa stood above him, the three ninja stood around them. His pale white robes were stained with blood as three blades pierced him from three different directions, his withered hands were tightly gripping two of the blades as blood poured from his fists. The emotionless ninja masks stood in stark relief in the moonlight, the splashes of life blood lending them a demonic nature.

"Naruto…." It happened in slow motion to Naruto, his grandpa fell like the greatest oak in the forest and all he could hear was his heart beat getting louder and louder in his head.

His vision was beginning to fade, the last thing he saw was a shining blade slowly making its way towards him…

* * *

The dripping of water could be heard echoing endlessly. Vast rusted pipes pulsed faster and faster as chakra thundered through them with ever greater intensity. A towering gate marked the entrance to the jail cell fitted only with a slight piece of paper marked 'seal'.

Deep in the wet darkness two slitted red eyes opened with a snap, hateful scarlet chakra ignited and boiled forth in a tidal wave drowning the sewer like dungeon. The slitted eyes narrowed in age old caustic fury…

 **"I will not die because of you weakling!"**

 **'**

 **'**

 **Author's Note:**

Hi all, I've tried my hand and Naruto fanfiction before but failed because I based the story on "powers" and not plot. With this idea I was inspired by "Sage" but decided to take shape in in a different way.

You can imagine Naruto is not going to be able to look at Ninja in any charitable way in the foreseeable future.

I'm still thinking about what I'm going to do with him, I can't see him wanting to go near Konoha after this, not a chance.

If you're wondering about Root, they actually do have a mission there and they are carrying out the Hokage's orders. Sarutobi is no wall flower, he knows when to get his hands dirty and for the right reasons. If anyone can give me the thirds reasons you get a cookie for sure.

Anyway I'm trying to think up a combat style for Naruto, if he's not going to learn monk jutsu or ninja should it be samurai techniques? Or should he just try and create his own powers from the little he has seen? I would appreciate any REALISTIC suggestions :p.

Also nice Kurama is overated. I like angry Kurama its more interesting :p.

Anyway hope you enjoyed it pls R&R.


	2. Chapter 2: Desolate Mind

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 2: Desolate Mind

The sky was overcast, thick with cloud shadowing everything. Not a sound could be heard other than the wind whistling through the desolate wasteland.

As far as the eye could see was pure destruction, jagged dirt and shredded trees had been uprooted along with their stumps. Great wounds dotted the land where hateful forces had lashed without restraint, natural cliffs turned to rubble and scree.

It was in this scene that a half-naked child named Uzumaki Naruto regained consciousness. All was pain in the first few moments as his bleary eyes attempted to focus. As he tried to move every inch of his body ached with a deep seated pain that lanced through his muscles and bones.

Forcing his body to move he turned over on his back, he stared up into the dull gloom. He was alive…but how? The last he remembered death had been coming for him in that sharp blood soaked blade. Had someone saved him? He focused on his memory…he could remember a terrible burning feeling pouring up through him right before everything stopped.

The emotionless shock was beginning to fade, his grandpa the person that had taken care of him since he could remember was dead. The image was forever etched into his memory, Konorugi standing over him resisting death until the very end and the ninjas that looked on with thoughtless indifference. Tears leaked from his eyes as he tried to sob, it only came out as harsh choking.

Turning over he slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He clutching the harsh rocks beneath him, squeezing the sharp stones in fury. His head hung low, his face hidden from the world. His breathing quickened and he jerked backwards to face the sky as his boiling emotions grew too powerful.

"AAAAAEHHHHH!"

The high pitched childish scream of fury, sadness and confusion sounded out across the empty dead land. The earth made no reply to his accusation.

"Why…? Why did this happen?" The question came out with a half sob, he could barely understand what had happened. Everything was gone, everyone he cared about was gone!

Dejected he stared desperately at his surroundings, hoping for something recognisable, something comforting. There was nothing, he couldn't even recognise where he was, there was no wreckage and he couldn't see the temple.

He clamped down on his emotions, it wouldn't do any good for now and he knew that grandpa would want him to survive not sit here crying for him.

Gritting his teeth Naruto stood on unsteady legs, he forced himself through the pain and took his first step. Even from his new height he could see nothing, ahead he could distantly see the forest that he guessed had once covered this whole area.

There was nothing to do but walk, he didn't even know where the temple was or even what direction he was going. He couldn't even see the sun to figure out his direction. Whatever happened next he would need food and shelter, both of which he could maybe find in the distant forest.

He began his long journey.

* * *

It had been two days since he woke up on the shattered rocks. His feet were beyond sore from the walking he had done. When he reached the forest he had only managed to find some berries that he thought were edible…well he didn't die from eating them anyway.

Finding water hadn't been too difficult either as there were several streams that he manged to drink from. Shelter had been far more difficult, he had pulled branches for warmth from the trees and slept hidden in the large roots. It was still cold at night and very difficult to catch any sleep, he kept on having vivid dreams of his grandpa's death and his own.

Thanks to being able to see the sun he now knew he was travelling north, he had some knowledge of what countries were north of fire country. If he travelled west he would come to Land of Grass in which Kusagakure resided, directly north was probably either the Takigakure or Iron country.

They all had their dangers, but he knew he couldn't stay in fire country, he had a feeling those ninja that attacked weren't foreigners…he couldn't really explain it but he felt it was a good idea to go with his gut feeling.

He knew from grandpa that their temple was closer to the border with Kusagakure than anywhere else, it would be easier for him to escape there than travel for days across fire country. Plus the freezing weather of Iron country didn't appeal to him much considering his general lack of anything better than rags.

He just hoped he didn't run into any ninja, he couldn't risk being seen. If being a vessel for the Kyuubi was a big deal then he knew people would be looking for him, good and bad. Some would want to kill him, others would want to capture him for certain.

He just wished he could increase his pace, a slow trot was the best he had manged so far while his body wasn't fully recovered. Well at least his stamina would get better from all of this exercise!

He had thought a lot about how he had survived and he could only guess that _he_ was the cause of all that destruction. Was the Kyuubi's power that burning feeling before he blacked out? All of that devastation…he had done that. It was almost impossible to believe but…somehow he knew he was right on the money.

He looked off towards the west, the forest's thinned out a bit making walking much easier for long distances, becoming more grass land than uneven forest. Kusagakure was the closet easiest way to get out of the country.

He set himself some goals, power he needed it and lots of it. He needed to be able to control the Kyuubi's power and to do that he needed to be loads stronger than he was, he needed to _know_ what he was up against. Some monk taijutsu wasn't going stop a ninja in their tracks never mind a legendary monster. He knew his chakra was really strong, grandpa had said he had more chakra than a whole ton of monks…it's just what good is chakra when he couldn't do anything with it?

Grandpa had never taught him any jutsu, he had talked about the small few techniques that the monks had created but whenever Naruto had asked he had always said he was too young.

This was the plan when he arrived in Kusagakure, gain as much knowledge as possible even if he had to steal it. That and get some clothes! He hated being cold and half naked, he would definitely be getting something with fur on the inside when he got there! Robes were so out! Ahh what about money? He couldn't buy stuff without it! Damn it he would just have to figure it out as he went along.

His thoughts turned black as he thought about what he was going to do. He wouldn't trust the adults as far as he could throw them, if those ninja that attacked were what all those guys were like then he knew he couldn't trust them at all. They might as well be monsters in human skin. He needed to know why all of this had happened.

He knew in that moment what he would do. When he was strong enough he would go to the Hokage of Konoha and force him to answer his questions!

Resolved he started off on his new course.

* * *

Hiruzen Sarutobi sat slouched in his chair, pipe smoke twisted its way around his wide hat like a coiling snake. His old eyes were crinkled with crow feet and his face was badly weathered with many winters.

This was the Third Hokage, leader of Konoha's ninja forces and one of the most experience men of the current age next to his rival Ōnoki the third Tsuchikage of Iwa.

It was night time in Konoha and the village was mostly silent with the odd villager making merry in the streets. The windows to his office were all closed and sealed with a fuin formula, that was the gravity of the conversation being held.

He eyed the man presenting his report with a sharp eye, his full attention was focused on the information being presented.

The man before him was the best sensor in Konoha, Inoichi Yamanaka also leader of the clan Yamanaka. He had been tasked with collating the intelligence available to Konoha to best inform the Hokage, this included the information gained from the Sannin Jiraiya.

"It is done Hokage-sama, the mission was a success." Hiruzen remained unmoved at the announcement waiting for Inoichi to continue, "The root team successfully managed to bring out the Kyuubi's chakra. The sensor readings were strong enough that even a sensor in Kumo would have sensed it. Their own sensor division has no doubt detected the signals and informed the Raikage."

"From the report of the operation Uzumaki Naruto was instantly overcome with a flood of Kyuubi chakra, it transformed him into a "miniature kyuubi" which proceeded to destroy the general area with extreme prejudice. Four of the team of five root operatives were killed by it before Uzumaki sprinted off at high speed, far faster than the last intact member of the team could track. The trail of destruction measured several kilometres in length before it ended abruptly. We can only assume that Uzumaki had burnt himself out and that his chakra system could no longer support the flow of biju chakra."

Hiruzen looked down at his desk, the pit that was his stomach just kept on sinking. This was his fault, he knew it was the only way to fix things but it was his fault alone. Had Naruto come to Konoha to loosen the seal there was no guarantee they could tighten it again, even with Jiraiya's help it could cause a deteriorating problem that could end up with the Kyuubi fully released. That was something everyone needed to avoid.

He had been foolish enough to believe his actions were sparing Naruto, once again he had proven a poor decision maker. He looked up at Minato's picture and could only see steely accusatory eyes glaring down at him.

Danzo had come to him with the idea originally, of course he had disagreed at first calling him far too heavy handed. But when faced with all-out war against a nation with two fully realized Jinchūriki Hiruzen couldn't afford to be hesitant. Konoha was not yet strong enough to face such a war, the kyuubi attack had wounded them far more than the other nations suspected. The fact that Hiruzen had been forced to become Hokage again spoke very loudly that no one else had the talent or skill to take his place.

Agreeing to the plan had made him question his morals more than once late at night, the letter he had sent to Konorugi only a few days earlier now felt like a betrayal of fathomless proportions.

"And the boy?"

"When our teams arrived he was long gone and the dense biju chakra smothering the area made it impossible for either the Hyuuga or the Aburame to track him. We are having better luck with the Inuzuka clan but with the changing weather the sent has become very indistinct." Inoichi frowned as he considered the problem, "Our sensors have lost track of him as well which is very unusual, someone with the level of chakra he possesses…we should be able to pin point him easily."

"The Kyuubi it seems doesn't wish its host to be found, it is likely manipulating the mix of his chakra making it heavier so that it does not emanate from his body as easily." Hiruzen had seen a similar effect with Kushina and Mito when they were alive. Though it had been more a conscious effort rather than an involuntary one.

"I see, it appears likely that we will lose track of him…" Inoichi looked concerned at the thought, perhaps he was thinking of his young daughter being in a similar situation.

"…If that happens, make it a standing order for all ANBU to keep an eye out for him, he should be easily recognisable to them. His looks are quite similar to Minato's." Hiruzen paused as he considered the situation, "What word from the border of Yugakure any activity from Kumo?"

"Activity has slowed, it seems this mission has paid off. From what Jiraiya-sama and his network have found it seems the Raikage is reconsidering his intelligence." Inoichi's expression brightened slightly, "It is possible that the war will be averted, all intelligence so far seems to point to it."

"Very well you are dismissed." Hiruzen turned his chair away from the table to face the dark night pinpricked with only a few lights from Konoha below. He felt Inochi stop a moment.

"Hokage-sama…Jiraiya-sama also sent me a message. He said he is on his way to Konoha. I do not believe he is happy with recent events."

Wasn't that the understatement of the year? Jiraiya would be furious, he could quite possibly even threaten bodily harm to his old sensei. Even if he understood the motivations it didn't mean he would agree with Danzo's solution.

"I already know Inoichi…"

The man paused in silence before leaving the Hokage to his thoughts. The darkness of the room seemed to lean down on him, the eyes of his predecessors were so very judging…

"Where did everything go so terribly wrong…?"

* * *

 _ **"**_ ** _Naruto…."_ **

"Huh?"

Naruto paused mid stride, had someone said his name? He felt sudden fear, he looked around the darkening forest, even after everything he was still afraid of ghosts.

 **"Naruto!"**

He nearly was nearly sick as he went cross eyed at the pulling sensation in his chakra. One moment he was about to wretch out the little food he had managed to scavenge and the next he was diving into knee deep water.

He caught his balance at the last second before trying to even out his breathing. This new place was dank and cold. Above him he could see damaged pipes leaking water out in a slow trickle.

He could hear deep plunging breathing, like a massive set of bellows for a blacksmith. He could feel the air shift with each massive breath.

He followed the sound deeper into the dungeon like factory, the metal walls giving little away to him regarding where he was.

Around the final corner he entered a truly massive room, ceiling was taller than he could actually see and completely wreathed in darkness. Before him in the center of the room was a huge gate covered in intricate patterns. Covering over a join where Naruto would normally assume a lock would be was a large piece of paper.

Upon it was a single kanji, fuin.

Even for a six year old that was all that Naruto needed to see for him to realize what this place was. Somehow this was where the Kyuubi was held….maybe this place was his mind or something.

 **"Finally my weakling jailor has found his way here…"**

The deep voice was connected to a massive dark form just beyond the gate. Naruto dared to go no closer to the gate, even if the Kyuubi was sealed the fact that its power to affect him at all meant that it was still dangerous.

"Kyuubi…"

 **"You keep your distance…perhaps you are not as stupid as you look"**

The creature came closer to the gate each step releasing a thudding sound, two great slitted ruby eyes were illuminated, the glint of an enormous mouth full of shiny teeth hinted beneath them.

"I'm not stupid ya know! I get how powerful you are…and..." Naruto paused as he looked up at the gigantic nine tailed fox, whatever it was it had saved him and grandpa had beaten some manners into him, "Thanks for saving me...I know I'd have been dead without you."

The red eyes seemed to widen for a second Naruto felt like he had probably imagined it.

 **"Hmph."** The blast of hot air blasted past the six year old flicking his yellow hair around his head, **"As well you should! I will not die for anyone or any reason, least of all your own pathetic human weakness. Age is no excuse."**

Naruto looked down, it was right, age wasn't an excuse it seemed…not in this world anyway. He looked up suddenly, the Kyuubi was super old right? Maybe it knew lots of jutsu!

"Hey! You don't know any stuff about chakra do you? I need to get loads stronger for when I go to Konoha!" The Kyuubi's huge eyes narrowed it irritation.

 **"Foolish child, what would I the Kyuubi know of human techniques?"**

Naruto looked down at that, it felt like a kind of stupid question now that he thought about it. What did a massive monster need to know about human chakra and how to use it? Damn…well still its way older than he was it would definitely have some advice.

"Oh…sorry…do you have any advice? Do you know anything about Ninja?"

The fox looked almost amused for a second a slow rumbling echoed through the chamber. Was the Kyuubi was laughing? That was super creepy…

 **"You are a species that covets power above all else and fears the power others possess which cannot be grasped or taken…"** The red eyes once again narrowed it what looked like consideration, **"Your plan to go to Kusagakure is better than you realize the power of the great nations is limited in these minor countries for fear of war."**

The glinting mouth seemed to stretch inhumanly into a parody of a smile, **"Seek your power but know it will never compare to the power I can offer you…"**

"Erm…thanks but your powers are really scary, I think I'll try and avoid using it in the future!" The Kyuubi seemed to find this amusing as the echoing rumble once again shivered through the room.

 **"I will be honest out of respect for your broken innocence, understand human I will never stop trying to free myself from this damned seal!"**

Naruto gulped, his mouth suddenly patched dry. He could tell the Kyuubi was deadly serious about that. For the first time Naruto actually understood how dangerous the burden placed on him actually was.

 **"My advice…keep your wits about you…"**

The next moment Naruto felt the rushing of chakra pushing at him and suddenly he was waking up in a face down in the dirt. Spitting out a clump of grass he could hear the faint rumbling laughter echoing up from the seal. Damn fox…

Shaking his head he climbed back to his slightly unsteady feet. Naruto closed his eyes and focused his mind. At least he knew he was making a good decision.

One foot was once again place in front of another as he took another step forward…

 **Author Note:**

Hi all, decided to strike while the anvil is hot. So I got this out here pretty quick. Tell me what you think of his decision and motivations. He doesn't have anyone to get stronger for other than simple revenge. But I want to temper that slightly with his own good nature. He means business but he's not going to be all "GARR Kill Konoha!" Which would be stupid. He doesn't know enough about what happened.

Tell me if Kyuubi came off okay…I felt he was maybe a bit too frank with Naruto, but I can see him doing that with a six year old Naruto. Ie fair warning :p.

Anyway heading to Kusagakure, not if you've following the anime you probably saw that suitable horrific rendition of Karin's childhood that will feature. Another example for Naruto of how sick ninja can be.


	3. Chapter 3: The Dream of Freedom

_Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto._

 **Author Prenote: Guest reviews:**

The reason Minato sealed only half within Naruto is because he wasn't a good enough seal master and he was low on chakra at the time. He could only managed to move half the Kyuubi's chakra into the seal.

Kurama could have indeed told him a lot of things, question is why should he? That's right this isn't post fourth shinobi war Kurama this is pre canon Angry!Kurama. Ergo he pretty much wants to take over his host and get free.

Naruto will learn about Natural energy eventually, it's going to be an important part of his skill set.

* * *

 _Notes: Kusagakure_

 _A country wedged between Iwa & Konoha it was the site of several wars, in much the same way Ame was treated it became a battle ground for most of the ninja wars. Because it was generally viewed as a dangerous place to live like many minor villages the concentration of clans is lower than in other countries most having either chosen to side directly with either Konoha or Iwa. For example the Aburame and Kamizuru Clan had been rival clans originally from Kusa which migrated to opposing sides during the first shinobi world war. _

_Because of this their ninja forces tend to be slightly piece meal, mostly made up of civilian trained first or second generation ninja with a smattering of small clans and refugees. It is not unusual to see a single member of an unknown or lost clan joining the village, indeed during the second shinobi world war they took in many refugees from distant lands escaping the fightning._

 _Kusa while named for its grass consists of a meeting of the more rock terrain in Earth country with the more dense vegetation of Fire country. That means its terrain is quite variable going from woodlands to long plains with rocky outcrops and valleys._

* * *

 **Chapter 3: The Dream of Freedom**

It was the early morning in Kusagakure in the Land of Grass, it was a small village with limited strength compared to the great villages like Iwa or Konoha. Still the minor villages could be appealing to those ninja that felt stifled by their larger counterparts.

It was a sprawling settlement placed on a major river with various bridges crossing between the different districts. Part of the village also stretched up to the rocky hills nearby, mostly consisting of a few huts and shacks devoted to shepherds and their herds. The main shinobi headquarters was placed at the centre of the village which consisted of a large tower with the wavy Kusagakure symbol stamped on its front.

One important problem that came along with being a minor village was knowledge. They had fewer clans and a more limited skill base of fuinjutsu, medical techniques and other large scale ninjutsu. That was why the higher ups were always eager to take in refugees from other villages or clans as they could bring with them great stores of secret knowledge.

These newcomers were usually looked upon with favour as they could contribute a great deal to the village simply by sharing their knowledge. However if they had nothing useful to contribute they were usually either encouraged to leave or pressganged into the ninja forces.

For a certain girl this fact was a waking nightmare.

Tired ruby eyes cracked open at the first few rays of morning sunshine, reflecting the light listlessly the owner made no move to shy away from the glare. Another day awaited her and she could barely summon the will to pull the shielding covers away from her aching body.

She knew they would be there at the door to her small home, ready to 'escort' her to and from the hospital, like livestock ready to be harvested. Her dull eyes closed shut at the pain in her chest, that's exactly what she is just as her mother was. An animal to be used and used until there was nothing left!

Resigned she slipped from her cot and staggered to her unsteady feet. She supposed she needed to clean herself up, she barely felt any motivation to do so after all why did a slave need to be clean for?

Her mother had tried to protect her by taking her place at the hospital. They had used her up, killed her because they were expendable foreigners. Of course they were much more careful with Karin, couldn't go killing the only surviving user of that ability now could they? She hated them with every fibre of her being. Not once had anyone she had helped ever thanked her, all they knew how to do was take!

She pulled on one of her grey shirts and tan bottoms, she pulled half-heartedly at them trying to smooth them down. Pulling on her small sandals she rested in the dull light inside _her_ hut, it had been her mother's before she died but now she was the only one left. It was very simple, with only a cot and a fire pit, the few scrolls or ornaments left behind were from her mother.

She decided that if she didn't want to die today she would need to eat something. There wasn't much, the ninja of the village would give her scraps, just enough for her to live. She always felt weak even after sleep, her 'work' at the hospital kept her tired all the time.

Sometimes she couldn't understand how she could heal all those people only on some half stale bread and cheese. She didn't know much about chakra, she only knew that when people bit her chakra would spill out and heal them, that and she could feel peoples chakra at a distance. Her mother had the same ability and she died for it, because she was weak, they killed her just because they could.

From what little she could understand from watching the hospital staff, the med-nins there were only such in name and were little better than simple civilian doctors. In the course of a day she would have to heal at most around twenty or thirty ninja. If there was a big battle against Taki or Ame then it could be a lot more, she could remember one day where she had fallen unconscious and they had continued to use her for several hours afterwards.

Thinking about this only made her feel worse, her future was bleak, there was only an early grave at the end of her road if she stayed here. But what else could she do, run away and be hunted down like a dog?

Several heavy blows sounded on her wooden door, the small iron latch clattering with each one.

"Hurry up!"

The even dull tone was very familiar to Karin, it was the man that killed her mother, Gengyo. Squeezing her eyes shut she grabbed her glasses and made for the door.

The man wore a green tunic with a mesh undershirt, with dark green slacks. His eyes were brown with strangely large irises, and upon his forehead was the Kusa ninja headband. She met the man's gaze for a moment before staring at the ground. He seemed to pause for a second before she watched his feet turn and begin the long walk back to the village. She followed him sullenly.

She watched with half an eye as the rest of the village passed her by, one or two of the villagers would stare for a moment before getting on with their business. She had always stood out from rest of the villagers, her scarlet red hair saw to that. It marked her as a foreigner and one that most saw as disloyal or worthless if not for her special ability. She hated it, if she had black hair or brown nobody would ever take a second look at her for any reason!

She barely ever spoke to anyone now days, they had only ever spoken to her to deliver demands so why should she seek out acceptance from anyone in this place? Her heart ached at the thought, she was alone. Sometimes she hated her mother for leaving her in this place.

The hospital was visible now, to her it was a dark place where they would force her to heal people she didn't know or even care about. It was a tall building with about six different levels, above it was it was a joined onto several other buildings by causeways. To Karin it was strange having such a large hospital but with so few competent doctors that they needed someone like her.

Gengyo left her at the entrance knowing full well she would complete her duties. What choice did she have anyway?

Inside she was met by a smiling orderly, she was a young woman dressed in a nurses uniform. Under her arm she carried a clip board.

"Ah, just in time there was an ambush by Ame forces early this morning, several teams were injured in the resulting battle."

Karin's eyes dulled, there was always more work. If for no other reason she wished the Kusagakure's forces were more competent so she didn't have to keep healing them.

She was lead down the hallway to ward 2B, it was where the most critically injured were kept when they were just brought in. Instantly she could hear the cries of pain and suffering, somehow it failed to move her emotions at all.

The nameless orderly led her down the aisle to her first patient of the day. He was a wretched man missing both of his legs from the knee down and part of his right hand. It looked to be explosive damage. He was twisting and turning in pain as he rested on the blood stained bed.

Apathetically Karin pulled up her sleeve and presented her forearm before his mouth. She never looked at them, and they never hesitated to bite her.

A second later she could feel shock of him biting into her skin his saliva coating it, she could feel the chakra in her body begin flowing powerfully in through his mouth and into his body. A moment later he fell away, resting calmly back onto the bed.

She didn't look back, they never sought her out to thank her so why should she care? She could only focus on getting through the day, she couldn't afford to feel anything.

The orderly smiled benignly in ignorance and gestured for Karin to follow her to the next one. Karin followed along listlessly.

Again and again the scene repeated itself, the sheer deluge of wounded humanity was beginning to erode her sense of reality. She could feel it fraying at the edges, and at some moments she just wanted to scream herself hoarse.

Every time they bit her it also showed her their chakra intimately, that was the worst part. The more she experienced their chakra the more it all felt the same, either dull and cold or worse, foul and diseased. You could tell what kind of person someone was from their chakra and she hated feeling anything at all from them, she would prefer to pretend it wasn't happening. Normally she could control her ability to sense chakra, but when they were connected to her directly she lost all control over it.

It was like every moment of the day was trying to make her give up, to just disappear into that power and become a lump of meat for them to cart around on a gurney.

She knew if that happened she would be dead within days.

"I need a break…"

It was not a request, as she began slowly trudging for the stairs, every movement felt like it took ten times the effort. She didn't look back to see if the orderly disagreed with her.

It took a few more minutes to reach the roof, she sat down and stared out across Kusa. The clouds overhead so happily fluffy only served to make her feel worse, she was jealous of those clouds so unrestrained and free. She could see the flashing blurs of ninja as they arrived and departed the headquarters, obviously the increased activity was due to the attack by Ame.

It was very likely that a ninja was coming to put her back to work but she needed this time to rebuild her defences. She could only take so much before she would go mad.

She wished she could get stronger, strong enough that they wouldn't be able to force her into this hospital, strong enough to make decisions in her life for herself. But she had no money, they didn't pay her for any of this. In their minds she was repaying them for the pleasure of allowing her to stay here.

She guessed she could sell some of the things her mother had left behind and buy some ninja supplies to train with. But even if she did that she didn't know enough about ninja jutsu or fighting to even train in it…that was if she could find the energy to do that after a day in the hospital.

Her head hung lower, she hated knowing there wasn't a way out. If she just ran away they would track her down and force her back, probably into a jail cell.

Getting back to her feet she stared back down into the blackness of the stairwell, it was time to get back if she waited any longer they would probably think she had deserted.

She descended into the blackness…

* * *

A heavy crack sounded throughout the calm morning air of the forest, a rotten log had just been split by a quick moving sandal. The fast paced footsteps continued past several trees as they were dodged.

Naruto grinned as he sprinted forward, if his spirits had been any higher he would have whooped while leaping through the air.

Finally things were turning his way, he had met a travelling merchant by the name of Mo'ken and his family. They had been quite startled by his half naked appearance from the bushes. After he had explained he was running from ninja Mo'ken had been quite ready to move on as quickly as possible. His wife however had been quick to give him some food and some old clothes.

He was now the proud owner of a long poncho, a smallish shirt and tan bottoms. The poncho had some cool designs on it as well, warm too! He knew he had enough food now to get to across the border and puzzle his way to a village.

He had quite quickly realized that his ability to run for days was pretty unnatural for someone his age, he had never had to really work his body this hard before. Sure he had trained in taijutsu but that didn't involve extremely long runs. It was strange, he got hungry and tired but it wasn't because his body was sore from the effort.

Naruto took a moment to think about the direction he was going, Mo'ken had come along the Kusa Konoha trade route so he knew the general direction to follow. Just following the road would have been stupid so he decided to stay off the road in case he came across some people he wanted to avoid. Therefore he made his own way dodging through the forest and the odd banboo stalk, it took his mind off what had happened at the temple.

He could still see the worn road following the contour of the land, and as long as he stayed within sight of it this would be easy!

Naruto dashed off again, pushing himself as fast as he could go without needing to breathe too deeply. As he ran he tried to feel what his chakra was doing, it kind of felt like fizzing fuzzy stuff that buzzed around in his body, from his feet and legs to his hands and fingertips. Grandpa had tried to teach him about it but it was really hard to get it to do what he wanted. A lot of what grandpa tried to get him to do was super hard like getting leaves to stick to his head. What the heck kind of monk needs to stick leaves to his head?

At the moment his chakra felt like it was moving fast through his body, all he could feel was that bubbling boiling feeling was way faster than it had ever been before.

Naruto started to think over what would happen when he got to Kusa. He was going to need a plan, he knew fine well there would be lots of ninja there and avoiding them would be difficult. Maybe he could just sneak in? Yes…sneak into a village full of trained ninja. He smacked his forehead with his open hand a few times.

Maybe he could scout the outskirts, there also might be an abandoned place he could stay at for a time. After that figure out how to get the knowledge he needed. He knew fine well this wasn't going to be easy but since when was anything easy now days?

Or maybe he was over thinking this, he didn't exactly look like anything impressive. Who would take a second look at a scruffy dirty six year old? His hair was really obvious though, yellow tended to do that. Maybe he could put some mud in it?

What if he walked in with some other people, try and blend in? That's a better idea! No point in acting like a ninja to outsmart trained ninja he wouldn't get anywhere with that.

He would watch the main entrance and then follow some merchant in, hopefully it would pay off. If not…well he could run for a pretty long time!

Once he got inside he would need to find some way to find the knowledge he needed. Watching ninja maybe? It was really unlikely they would leave scrolls lying around where just anyone could find them. That meant the headquarters of the ninja would probably have a whole bunch of them. Or maybe their school? Ninja had schools right?

It was a lot to think about, but thankfully he had plenty of time to puzzle out what he would do.

Naruto turned looked back over his shoulder. One day he could return to Fire country, but for now he needed to get stronger.

* * *

It was the late evening and the shadows were growing longer, birds were roosting and the forest was quiet. The only sound to be heard was the fast paced footsteps from a poncho wearing boy.

Naruto was tired, it had been nearly a full day of running but he knew he was close. The numbers of caravans on the road had increased so it was natural to assume some kind of civilisation was nearby. He pushed himself for a little bit longer bringing him up over the crest of the latest hill, he could see that the trade route cut through the hill making it perfectly level for carts.

Atop the hill he was momentarily struck dumb, he had never seen such a large village or so many houses and huge storied buildings. For Naruto having grown up in a small temple with so few visitors it was overwhelming, sure he knew places like this existed but knowing it and seeing it were two very different things.

Tightening his focus he tried to take in the details, Kusagakure was a sprawling settlement spread over a wide variety of terrain. Part of the village was sitting in the flood plain lowlands straddling a river, the rest stretched up into some craggy cliffs, he could see a few sparse huts up there. Maybe farmers or something?

The centre of the village was dominated by several storied buildings, the number of people that had to live and work there was almost incomprehensible to him. How did they not go mad with so many people around? Naruto liked people but he could get annoyed when there were too many around. It tended to confuse his senses, so sometimes he would stay away while they were there.

Regardless he needed to get down there, he focused intently on what he could tell was one of the main entrances inside. He could see a couple of what he guessed were ninja inspecting one of the trade caravans, so they seemed to be pretty strict. That meant his idea to dirty up his hair was a must, as it was he was way too recognisable for it.

Dashing down the hill he made his way to the side of the river, making sure to keep low to the ground and out of sight of prying eyes. Finding a moderately calm pool of water he stared at his reflection for a moment, tired blackened eyes stared back at him. Closing his eyes he ignored the image and wetted his hair, after that finding a patch of dry dirt to rub into it was easy.

Once again Naruto inspected his image, his normally bright yellow hair was now a darker duller blonde. At the very least it made him far more forgettable, he started for a moment, he had almost forgotten about his whiskers. He knew most people didn't have them, after all none of the visitors ever had them and grandpa said they were unique. Now he guessed it was probably something to do with the Kyuubi, you know foxes and whiskers make sense maybe?

Smudging some grime into his cheeks made them far less distinct, more like cuts or abrasions than the actual birth marks they were.

Hopefully these Ninja didn't know anything about him, still it was a gamble so he needed to be prepared to run for it.

Finding the road again he sneaked in behind a passing caravan, he kept out of sight of the owners and shadowed their progress towards Kusagakure. Up close the walls were actually pretty shabby looking, nowhere near as tall as he would have expected for such a huge settlement. Two lookout towers rose of either side of the gate and atop them he could make out a few dozing figures on watch.

Unfortunately the ninja on the ground were nowhere near as lacking as their counterparts in the towers. They were stopping every caravan and making thorough checks on each cart. Were they always this exacting he wondered?

He watched as a big nosed ninja dressed in a strange set of shoulder pinned flack armour which fell diagonally across his chest poked his way intently through each cart. It was time consuming work as well as he took his sweet time with each inspection. His companion a thin waif of a man eyed each merchant with a hawk like expression, Naruto could imagine many traders had broken under that painful glare.

It wasn't long before the ninja caught sight of him staring at him from behind one of the cart wheels. Naruto felt his heart almost burst as the man made his way toward him. Hiding behind the main body of the cart he closed his eyes in anger at his own stupidity.

"Damn it…" Naruto sighed trying to control his own fear. He stepped out before the man cornered him behind the cart and looked straight at him.

The hawkish ninja was nearly on top of him as his nose went into the man's chest. The slight twitch that went through the ninja was the only indication of a suppressed automatic reaction. Naruto in his inexperience failed to notice it entirely.

"And who are you supposed to be gaki?" There was a sneering quality to his face as he looked down his nose at the rather dirty boy.

"Uhh…I..I'm just following the roads, I needed a place to sleep…" He wanted to punch himself for his own stupidity, what kind of response was that? The ninja seemed to think similar as he seemed to loom over Naruto a single eyebrow raised.

"Haaah? Funny gaki, where are your parents eh? They with this mangy lot?" He gestured to the rest of the caravan, his eyes narrowing in derision. Naruto bit down on his reflex response.

"I don't have any…" Naruto focused, what would make this guy go away? Weren't ninja villages always looking for recruits? Maybe that would work, it wasn't like this guy could check up on every kid in this village. He pushed all the false determination he could bring into his next statement, "…The truth is I came to join the village and be a shinobi!"

"Hooh really? Whats your name? And why would we need a weakling gaki like you?" His face twisted in amusement as he stared down at Naruto. Obviously he had said the right thing to the man as he was instantly more sympathetic.

"…My name's Ruto, my parents were killed by ninja so I'm out to get stronger! I'm pretty fast I can run for a super long time!" Naruto almost gagged at having to pander to this guy. He hated lying more than anything, it felt like such a betrayal of everything he knew.

Luckily the man seemed to misconstrue Naruto's anger at him as anger for those not so phantasmal shinobi murderers. He seemed to judge him a moment longer before his eyes dulled and he turned away.

"Sure fine then gaki, go on through, our village is always looking for more ninja…" He walked away once again glaring at the now sweating traders.

Naruto couldn't believe his luck, he had just bluffed his way past an experienced ninja! Either he was stupidly lucky or that guy wasn't as observant as he thought he was. On second thoughts Naruto believed it was probably the latter that was true…

He made his way past the gates and quickly tried to lose himself in the busy streets. He could see all sorts of people, from the odd ninja blitzing past over head to the most humble of beggars. Stalls were set up along the main thoroughfare selling all sorts of things, he even saw one selling carved figures of famous people. He could see that ninja featured the most with impressive armour and scary expressions.

He would never understand why people seemed to look up to people that killed innocents without even a hint of regret. It was evil plain and simple!

Suppressing his anger he focused on the other more interesting things he could see. A nearby ramen stall caught his attention but obviously he had no money so that was completely out of the question. He would need to figure out something quick as his supplies would probably only last a few more days. After that it was back to scavenging.

He could also see several stalls selling ninja tools, of varying quality. Naruto took note of where and when these traders would be, they had seemed all too eager to tell him considering he wasn't much more than a child.

 _"Look at that dirty boy…truly what is this Kusa coming to?"_

It took him a moment to notice that people were taking notice of him, okay so maybe dirtying himself up wasn't one of his smartest of ideas. He would need to see if he could find someplace to tidy himself up.

He decided to move on from the market, it was definitely a place to return too and have a look for potential supplies.

He did as much scouting as he could, venturing around the different districts trying to see if there were any places he might be able to get a job. So far it looked promising, but he needed to keep a low profile so odd jobs it was until he got a bit bigger. Other than that he investigated the centre of the village, specifically to see the ninja headquarters.

He sat on a nearby building staring at the huge structure, even at this hour it still had ninja arriving and departing at high speed. Was this normal for ninja villages? If so it felt way too busy.

It was getting dark now, the sun was setting casting everything in twilight. Naruto sighed to himself, once again he needed shelter from the dark.

Standing up he was about to jump down to the road before the last bit of sunlight reflected off something very eye catching. Bright crimson hair reflected in the last vestiges of sunlight before it dulled into the twilight.

"Huh…I've never seen hair like that before…"

The owner was a young girl, actually it was probably the first girl he had ever seen that was his age. Sure there had been others around the village but they were all way older than him.

The girl was really short and wore grey bottoms with a ragged matching shirt. The more he looked the more worried he got, she could barely walk straight tumbling into nearby walls and bracing herself along them. Her unsteady feet plodding one in front of the other.

He felt a compulsion to follow her, compassion he realized, hadn't thought he would feel that so soon after everything that had happened. He hadn't been much of a monk if he was honest, but helping people was always a good thing…even in his situation.

He jumped down nearby and followed her as carefully as possible. He could see her more clearly now, her eyes were like red ruby stones covered by black framed glasses that were slightly too big for her. Her clothes were moth eaten and ragged as the hung on her thin form. Naruto could tell she wasn't eating very well from how skinny she was.

It became clear a few moments later that she wouldn't be making it to where ever she was going. As she tumbled forward Naruto simply acted, he didn't even think or consider it.

He caught her by the shoulders as she fell, guiding her softly to lean against the wall. Her head fell back against his arm and her eyes caught his for the first time.

"…Its okay! I've got you. Do you need help?"

* * *

The doors of the hospital clacked harshly behind Karin as she tried to stagger away.

When they had finally dismissed her she could barely move never mind get home. It had happened a few times this year that she had spent a night in the gutter completely unable to move. Thankfully her overlords weren't complete fools and had given her the day off to recuperate, after all if she died they ended up with nothing.

She tried to focus to pull up what dregs of chakra still remained in her body to force onward. Even with her sense of chakra she knew if she pushed any harder she would end up with chakra exhaustion, something that could mean her death if she wasn't careful.

She had healed a total of thirty two badly wounded ninja today, as if it was something to be proud of. She knew those ninja would go back out to kill or be killed, it all meant nothing in the end. Her suffering had no meaning, all she could do was survive it.

More and more it had begun to feel like an impossible dream, she kept seeing her mother dead with a hundred bite marks all over her body. Sucked dry to the very last. It made her angry, made her hate and at times it gave her the strength to move forward. But today it only made her feel so very tired.

Once again she moved her foot forward to take another step, she nearly went over on her ankle pitching forward towards the wall of a nearby building. Her already tortured arm reflexed up protectively and scraped along the bricks painfully. She tried to get her balance back as she slowly shimmied along the wall cradling her wounded arm.

Her ruby eyes narrowed in frustration, she hated this, being weak took everything from a person. Life, happiness, freedom…everything! If you were weak you didn't matter, just another tool to be used by those with power and authority.

The rage boiling inside her made her take a step forward more quickly that she expected, this time she did fall forward. In slow motion she could see the dry ground move to up to greet her. In that moment she made no move to protect herself, only the feeling of resignation rose up within her.

Resignation of weakness, that she had no control over her own life or anything within it. In that moment she wished it was all over. As strong as she tried to be, she could only endure so much before reality would rush to kick her back down. Her whole body had released any tension within its muscles as she collapsed, her eyes slowly closing as she fell.

The moment ended with a single gentle touch.

She could feel small strong hands holding her up, guiding her gently to sit. Through that single touch she saw a burning bright chakra, it was so strong she could barely comprehend what was happening. That fire consumed her in its power, a second passed and she was completely enshrouded in its blazing heady depths. Instinctually she escaped into the feeling, fleeing the harshness of reality.

"…Its okay! I've got you. Do you need help?"

Karin barely heard the childish voice as she stared up in wonder, her eyes went wide looking up into the bright blue eyes of this person. He was smiling at her…at her!

She was simply struck dumb, this person was…concerned for her. She could feel it thought his fierce chakra.

"Uhh…I…Thank you…" She said in a quiet voice, no other words came to mind other than simple gratitude. He looked understanding at her response and replied quickly.

"It's okay, you look like you needed help. Do you know where your home is? I can help you get there!" He smiled so brightly to her it lit up the twilight sky around him.

"Its…up there…" Karin pointed wearily with her less injured arm up towards the back hills, the outskirts of Kusa. She watched as his blue eyes followed her direction and smiled.

"Let's go then!" He pulled her up onto his back, she instinctively latched on around his neck. Her face met the back of his neck, she could feel him hold her legs in place, tiredly she rested her head against the soft cloak he was wearing.

He started walking carefully in the direction she had shown him, keeping her balanced on his back.

Her hands were clasped tightly around his neck as she focused on his chakra. This was the first time she had ever done this intentionally, his fierce chakra was like the sun beautiful yet powerful beyond anything she had felt before. She could feel it spilling out of his body in a continuous wave of latent invisible power. He had so much it just escaped his body all the time?

Her damaged skin tingled as his chakra washed over her, if she was honest a shivering wave of intense feeling streaked its way up her spine. She buried her nose and mouth in the soft wool of his cloak hiding the slightly dazed smile on her lips.

Was this…happiness?

* * *

A few more directions and Naruto had found her house…or rather hut. It was a single round hut with a sloping roof. Outside he could see a well for fresh water. He guessed it had once been a shepard's stop on the hill. To him it was weird that a girl would be living here, and if she was in this state then she was definitely on her own…

He glanced back at her sleeping face, her lips were parted slightly as she breathed shallowly. Her scarlet mop of hair fell over her eyes in a messy cascade her brow pinched slightly in her sleep. He felt like she had a lot on her mind.

He kicked the door to the hut open gently and staggered in carefully. As strong as he had realized he was his endurance wasn't unlimited, carrying her all the way up here more or less exhausted him.

He wobbled around in the dark carrying his passenger, he could see an unmade bed near a burnt out fireplace. He laid her out carefully, pulling the covers over her slightly to keep the cold away.

Damn it fires weren't his strong point…

He scrabbled around the fire place, he nearly cried out in victory when he found some flint and tinder, now all he needed was some kindling and luck. Well that and a couple of logs if he could find them.

It took him about half an hour to get the fire started, it was certainly needed as the night here was far cooler than in Fire country. Venturing out into the cold he brought in some fresh water, one of the old copper pots seemed good enough for heating it.

He just needed some hot water to tend to her, he was pretty experienced with helping those in need…well sorta grandpa had always done it mostly. At the temple they sometimes got desperate people coming for help. Usually some of grandpa's soup would do it, but he had no soup to give…

Well he could tend to her injuries, her arm looked like it had taken a bad hit when she nearly fell the first time. He put some cloths in with the water and let it boil.

Letting it cool he went over to her with the bowl of hot water. He pulled back her sleeve and examined it closely. At first he didn't know what he was looking at, most obvious was the graze she got from the rough bricks, but under that there was something else…strange circular marks…were those…teeth..marks?

What was this? The marks were all over her arm, leading right up, he checked her shoulder and found the same marks. Pulling her shirt off Naruto could only look on in horror…her whole body was covered in _bite_ marks!

"Tch…?"

Gritting his teeth he quickly dipped the cloth in hot water and began cleaning her wounds as best he could. The bite marks didn't seem to relent under his ministrations, it looked like internal bruising impossible for him to wipe away with simple water.

As he was tending her, scarlet eyes opened and stared up at him. He tried to smile reassuringly, he felt like he probably failed. She remained mindless of her own nakedness as a tired hand crawled its way to his cheek, she gently caressed it.

She smiled so genuinely at him that it struck him down to the core. Nobody had ever looked at him like that. Somehow he felt something very important had happened but he couldn't quite grasp what.

Her eyes closed again and the next second she was asleep again. Naruto could only smile a little bit, he had just shared the more genuine moment of his life with someone he didn't even know the name of.

With little else to do he went back to tending her. Perhaps in the morning he would have more answers as to what exactly those marks were on his new friend.

And who was responsible…

'

'

 **Author's Note:**

This chapter took a while to come out because I wanted to get Karin's character right. I found writing her to actually be easier than writing Naruto if you believe it, her thoughts just flow more easily to me.

Naruto in this fic is very much open to experience, he isn't like canon Naruto who is shaped by his isolation, this one is viewing everything with new eyes. Karin will teach him a lot about the world in this story.

I hope some of this was touching, I was kind of going for that. If anything seems not so good point it out and I'll try and edit it.

Anyway read review if you please.


	4. Chapter 4: Walk the Winding Way

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

Guest Reviews:

X: Naruto hates the ninja way, not their techniques or power. He's old enough to realize that tools are just tools. Its the intent that matters.

 **Chapter 4: Walk the Winding Way.**

The morning had come to the lonely hut on the hill. Birds frolicked in the sky overhead, streaking high into the flawless blue sky. The odd deer could be seen looking cautiously about as it bordered the forest. The trees reached high for the light, their leaves by any account looking greener than ever before. For any witness this was truly a glorious beginning to the day.

A part of that innocent light streamed in through one of the small windows of the quiet hut. Ruby eyes opened at the soft light, they nearly closed again as their owner cuddled deeply back into the warmth of her bed clothes.

Over the next few silent seconds Karin remembered what had happened last night, at first she thought it a dream. Someone had taken the time to help her…had carried her home! The next memory made her face burn with embarrassment…a boy…had...cleaned her. She knew the taboo that surrounded boys seeing girls in the nude…but for her she had never really thought about what it meant. What did boys have that she didn't anyway!?

She peaked out from beneath her covers and checked her surroundings. She spotted him immediately, dirty blonde hair and rumpled clothes all. He was lying up against the door his legs splayed out in front of him completely asleep.

She smiled involuntarily, she touched her face slightly in surprise it had been so long since she had smiled last. She creeped out of bed and sneaked quietly forward until she was nearly face to face with her new…friend?

In a word he was scruffy and unclean, his face covered in a thin dusting of dirt and his hair had caked mud in it. She frowned couldn't he find a river huh? Crouched in front of him she poked at his cheeks with a single finger, what she thought were dirt marks were actually something else! He looked like a neko…or maybe a fox!

She couldn't contain another smile that rose up onto her face.

Bright blue eyes flashed open with sudden intensity and she would have fallen backwards in surprise if not for the stronger hand now holding her own. The sudden contact brought his chakra back to the forefront of her mind, she reacted by falling back a few paces as she tried to bring her senses back to herself.

"Uhhh…I'm sorry, I didn't think you would be awake before me…" He was scratching the back of his head with a pained tired smile.

"…Its okay…I…Who are you?" Karin felt her cheeks colour once again as her voice wavered up to a higher note at the end.

He smiled brightly, his eyes closing in what seemed to be embarrassment…well she guess it was, he was kind of covered in mud so it was hard to tell.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I just came here to Kusa. I saw you late yesterday and it looked like you needed help. So…" He shrugged helplessly as he looked down and away at some distant part of the room.

Karin could only stare…he was…just…so alive! Everything about him his expressions and the genuine emotion in his eyes even if she could tell it was slightly forced… she just had no experience with it.

She was so used to grim faced ninja all too happy to sacrifice her or distant villagers sneering or silently condoning what was happening to her. It was…different.

"I…I'm Karin…" Her eyes dropped to the ground as she blushed at her half-hearted attempt at an introduction. The moment of awkward silence continued before she realized the depth of the debt she owned him, not for helping her…but for…she couldn't quiet put it into words in her mind.

"Thank you…" Her voice was so quiet is almost seemed a whisper, but in the morning calm it rang out like a silver bell. She stared up at him through her messy fringe, his blue eyes widened slightly at her tone before smiled again this time much more forced.

"Do you mind if I stay with you for a bit? I don't have anywhere else to go…" He looked embarrassed as he scratched his neck. How could she say no to someone that had helped her?

"I don't mind…" Her voice came out tremulously as she tried to project a more confident tone. His eyes met her own before straying down to her uncovered arms.

"Karin…when I was cleaning your arm…I saw…" His gaze took on a darker tone, the undercurrent of anger and sympathy in his eyes was almost too much for her. Heart in her mouth she clutched her arms to her chest feeling like she wanted to disappear. He saw the marks, what they did to her. He had to be disgusted for sure, the first nice person she had ever met that wasn't her mother and it was ruined by this?

She ran back to the bed and threw herself away from his fierce gaze. A few moments past when she suddenly felt his hand on her shoulder. He hadn't left?

"I'm sorry…but I need to know, who did this to you?" She nearly flinched at the deep rage she could feel in his chakra, it felt bottomless like a great pit of black hate had opened up within him. It took a few moments for her to realize that it wasn't directed at her, she peaked up at him from her covers.

His blue eyes were so piercing, her mouth trembled as she formed what words she could.

"…I…they m-make me…w-work at the hospital…" She choked out. But the words flowed more easily the more she spoke, "…I don't know how it works…but when people…" She closed her eyes as tears streaked down her red cheeks "…b-bite m-me it heals them…the ninja force me to help them…"

She could feel that bottomless anger rise then suddenly without warning it disappeared entirely. She heard a long sigh released from the boy behind her. Startled she looked up her tears having reddened her face so much it was nearly the same colour as her hair.

He was sitting with his back to her bed, his head drooping down as he sighed again.

"I'm sorry…I scared you. Thank you for telling me…" He fell silent but she could feel he was thinking furiously on the inside.

Karin sat emotionally exhausted on the bed gazing sightlessly forward, her bare feet grazing the cold floor. As her senses came back to her she watched as Naruto glared a hole into the stone slabs beneath him.

Her whole body jerked in fright when the door nearly rattled off its hinges with the three consecutive blows made on the outside. Her heart nearly burst, she had completely forgotten about Gengyo!

She surged to her feet grabbing her worn sandals and nearly tripped as she pulled them on.

"It's time!" His gravelly and annoyingly grim voice sounded like the mountains outside gargling rocks.

Out of the corner of her eyes she could see Naruto standing ramrod straight, his fierce eyes staring right through the door at where she knew Gengyo was standing. His expression was frightening, he looked ready to charge out there and attack him. She only felt more scared at the thought, Gengyo was strong he could kill her new friend!

"I'm coming!" She shouted loudly.

She sprang forward and hugged Naruto from behind, she could feel his body relax almost immediately. His chakra simmering down to a much slower burn. She whispered into his shoulder as quietly as she could.

"Please…don't. You can't help me…that's Gengyo, he'd kill you if he saw you here." She swallowed the tightness in her throat, "Just…hide please."

She could see the scowl on his face increase, his chakra began to surge more powerfully. She grabbed his arms and pulled him back trying to make her point. She watched his teeth grit as he lurched away to crouch in a darkness near front door.

Closing her eyes she ran forward and burst out into the morning light. The harsh faced Gengyo was as always ready to escort her to the hospital. A scowl was pinned on his face as he stared right through her.

"Hmph…" Her turned and stalked off down the trail. Karin looked quizzically at his back…that wasn't normal. Did she take too long or did he sense Naruto's chakra?

She quickly picked up the pace and followed her escort down into the town. Her stomach grumbled unhappily, she grimaced she had forgotten to grab something to eat. This wouldn't be an easy day. She just hoped Naruto didn't do anything stupid while she was gone.

* * *

Naruto sat by the door, silently seething at his own weakness. He had been tempted, oh so tempted to call up the Kyuubi, to let its power run riot through Kusa with abandon. What they had done to Karin was unforgivable, it didn't matter that she had helped people through her suffering. Those ninja she helped inevitably would just kill more people and cause more suffering. His hands formed into fists, tight enough to cause pain, it brought him focus.

What could he do? He wasn't trained enough, some taijutsu wasn't going to stop a seasoned ninja in his tracks. He was too small as well, his strength was nowhere near a match for them.

For now Karin was right, as much as he hated to admit it, he was weak. The Kyuubi wasn't a tool to be used in hands too weak to wield it! Right now it was more a bomb to be unleashed destroying everything around it. Could he keep Karin safe through that?

No.

He needed to train like he never had before. If Karin was going to that _hospital_ then he would suffer alongside her. He would train his body till it bled and then more. It was the only way he might feel like less of a coward for not just charging out there and trying to beat the crap out of her tormentor.

He would save her. He swore it to himself. The old man would expect nothing less of him.

He charged out there door, leaving it whipping about in the wind and charged up the steep hill to the treeline. Dodging through the trees he came to a smallish clearing with a few lonely trees standing on their own. It was as good a place as any.

He had never been a fan of just mindlessly beating on pieces of wood to increase his strength. Grandpa had never really stressed it saying there was 'time' for that later. Well there was no time. He needed it now more than ever.

He pulled off his poncho and threw it at a nearby bush.

Before the nearest tree he settled into his taijutsu stance, right fist held close to his body the other held at the ready. His legs bent at the knees. It was an uncomfortable position but a stable one capable of releasing strong punches.

Breathing out he started off. Punch after punch found its way into the hard bark of the alpine tree. The pain began soon after, he focused on it and embraced it. The more painful it became the more focused he became.

He passed hours like this without break, he soon began working on kicks hitting the bark as hard as he could with his legs. All he had manged to do to the tree was paint it red with blood stains. He hated how weak he was, if he had been really good at grandpa's teachings maybe he could have stopped those ninja back at the temple and this morning.

It took a moment for him to realize how stupid that thought actually was. If grandpa couldn't defeat them then even if he had been the best…it wouldn't have been enough. He stuck the tree with all the force he could muster, the bark stopped him dead and his hand was shaking in pain, blood dripping from his ruined knuckles.

This…this would take forever. Karin needed help now, not years from now! Chakra, he needed to be able to use his chakra, it was probably the only thing he had going for him as he was. Maybe Karin knew more about chakra than he did, maybe she could help him with his own. Grandpa had said he had a lot of chakra, way more than anyone his age. If he could control it…

Was that what that leaf thingy training was for? Stick a leaf to your forehead to control your chakra? Seriously?

He collapsed at the foot of the tree and grabbed a nearby leaf with a shaking hand. Focusing inward he put the leaf to his forehead and channelled his chakra to the same place. Removing his hand he felt the leaf flutter slightly as it stuck for a few seconds before he lost control of the chakra in his forehead. A second later and the leaf was blown away by the cold breeze.

Naruto sighed, it looked like this wasn't going to be quick. Then he really had no time to lose. Karin needed help and even if he had just met her he realized that he cared about her.

He wouldn't give up.

He placed the leaf back on his forehead and focused with all of his might. The same result repeated itself over and over, but the time he could hold it increased slowly and steadily. It was an improvement but still not enough in Naruto's eyes. He couldn't afford to be slow, if what he had seen from Karin's body was a regular thing…she might not have the time.

He glanced at his damaged hands. Huh…hadn't they been bleeding from raw wounds? He rubbed at the red looking undamaged skin…that definitely wasn't normal. He could remember the old man getting hurt and the wound would take ages to heal. Even if he was younger that couldn't mean he could heal bad wounds like that within hours!

Maybe this had something to do with the Kyuubi? Naruto sighed to himself, there wasn't really any way to know exactly unless he spoke to the huge fox again. And somehow Naruto knew he wouldn't be seeing the fox anytime soon unless he really needed to.

Massaging his forehead Naruto winced at the headache forming. Damn that stupid leaf thingy exercise, it made his brain hurt. Seeing as his hands were a little bit better he decided to do some more physical practice.

The sound of fist meeting tree resumed in the clearing, birds overhead chirped and tittered over the strange behaviour of the being below. The sun was marching on through the sky, it would be evening soon.

Naruto paused breathing hard, he glanced at the sky, it was nearly around the time when Karin left the hospital last time. He would need to help her back home, if the state she was in last night was anything like the norm then she would definitely need the help.

Grabbing his poncho he took off at top speed down the hill, everything could be training he realized even going to meet her at the hospital would need him to sneak past ninja and villagers.

Guiltily he considered snatching some better food from the villagers…what would grandpa say? His eyes hardened, he wasn't here anymore, he had to decide for himself what was more important. Karin's well-being and his own or his morals…

You couldn't eat morals he decided.

It would be good training, like snatching scrolls full of jutsu and secret knowledge on chakra. Besides, it wasn't like he would be stealing a lot, just a little for himself and Karin.

The market was busier today than yesterday, more stalls were open with more goods than he could count. Weapons, clothes, ornaments, furniture even children's toys were on sale. At one time just seeing all of this would have set his excitement racing…now…he felt beyond that kind of childish excitement.

He had spotted a target, a very long food stall, he could see all kinds of foods. The bags of rice would be easy to grab and make a quick getaway, he wasn't that strong so he would need to carry only a little. He could see the stall owner, a stout bald man with a bristling moustache. He was calling in buyers and shouting about the quality of his produce. Naruto judged that by the numbers of customers it seemed to be working!

He checked his surroundings, this was exactly like planning for a prank. You couldn't just charge in that wouldn't give him enough time and he would get caught. He would need a distraction, something to draw the merchant's attention, it would need to be pretty catastrophic.

Nearby he spotted some of the supplies the moustache wearing man had used to set up his stall. Most importantly resting on a packing crate was a long spool of string. That would work he thought triumphantly! To get to it he would need to get in close, there was a side alley which the man's stall straddled. If he could get there and sneak in he could grab the string and reposition again.

Leaping up the side of the building with a burst of chakra Naruto carefully made his way around. Dropping down into the alley he kept close to the ground, damn it he hated acting like a ninja it made his stomach turn!

Trying to keep his profile as small as possible he bolted from his hiding place, the spool of string was in his hand after a second. Retreating back to the alley, he waited to see if he hadn't been spotted. He could hear no sounds of pursuit luckily, so now the second phase of his plan could take place.

Leaping back over the building he joined the throng of people enjoying the afternoon market. Trying to act as casual as possible he walked up to the stall. He could see the front of it had a thick linen covering around the front. Good that would hide him quite nicely. A single glance told him that the merchant was eyeing him suspiciously. Of course he was, but this part wasn't about being unseen. All he needed was a single moment.

It came as the man was distracted by a customer inquiring about his tomatoes, Naruto took the chance and dived down under the stall. He crawled to the opposite end of the stall from the rice bags. The wooden legs looked to be on hinges for easy moving, perfect.

Tying the string to the legs he unwound the spool as he crawled backwards. When he was sitting safely under the table upon which his quarry rested he pulled as hard as he could.

The catastrophic crash of wood and falling fruit was his reward. Bolting quickly he grabbed the closest bag of rice and hid it under his poncho, dodging past concerned onlookers he ran into the nearest alley. A quick burst of chakra took him away from the scene to safety.

Glancing back, he could see the merchant jumping up and down in panic. Naruto's eyes saddened as he saw what he had done. It was unfair and wrong of course, and he didn't even know the name of the person he had stolen from, and likely never would.

This was a taste of the way of the ninja. To Naruto it tasted of black ash on his tongue.

"I'm sorry." He bowed in the direction of his victim.

Another burst of chakra took in the general direction of the hospital and his new friend Karin. At the very least she would get a real meal tonight…

* * *

The Hospital was slightly less crammed today, the nurses and the few doctors wandering around seemed to be much calmer than yesterday. True there were still quite a few patients in the wards but most of those would get by on mundane healing practises.

In total it had left around eleven people for her to treat that were still in critical condition. It seemed combat had stopped for today so there were no new causalities being brought in. Karin could only hope that it continued for the next few days, she needed to recover her strength.

Karin sipped on the cold water as she pulled off another lump of dry bread. She had managed to grab the bread from the cafeteria where most of the meals in the hospital were prepared. One of the dinner ladies had scowled up a storm when Karin had asked for something to eat. Still she had managed to get something.

She had been put on break miraculously, it didn't surprise Karin much, she guessed they were trying to conserve her in case there was another burst of fighting later today. She was sitting quietly watching the hospital buzz with activity.

Her thoughts wandered to a slightly mucky blonde boy she had only properly met this morning. Naruto's chakra…there was just so much to it. First the dazzlingly fierce fire like chakra she had felt from him and then the boiling dark heavy chakra that had crackled to her senses. Now that she thought about it, the dark chakra hadn't felt natural at all...was it truly his? But he seemed so nice, nobody that would help her could produce such a chakra! Besides she had felt diseased evil chakra before and it was nothing like that.

Not only was his chakra a mystery it was also the sheer scale of it. She had felt a lot of chakra's in her young life all from the ninja she had been force to heal. If she had to put it into words while average chakra she felt was like a well with about a foot of water at the bottom. Naruto…he was like falling from the sky into a vast ocean that covered the world to the horizon and beyond.

But as potent and vast as his chakra was she could feel he had little control over it. It flared wildly like a fire in his body not at all like the tightly coiled threads of chakra she felt from the ninjas she was familiar with.

She wasn't sure what it meant in all honesty, did that mean he couldn't control it or was he just different from them? She didn't have an answer.

Karin closed her eyes tight, she wished she could feel his chakra now. And like a subtle whisper summoned on the wind it was suddenly there. Burning hot to her senses…he was nearby now, coming into the village proper. How could she know that? She tried again to sense it, her want and need driving her.

She felt it again and dived into the feeling. It was like being someplace else entirely, she couldn't see anything but around him she could feel other chakras so quiet they were drowned out by his presence. Her concentration faded and in a moment she lost the sensation.

That was so weird! She smiled she had no idea her ability to sense chakra could be used on people far away from her…she had always thought it was something to do with touch!

She was brought out of her thoughts by a smiling orderly.

"Break is over Karin we have another patient for you…"

Karin winced and stood up, another one then. At least it was nothing like yesterday, she wasn't sure if she could take two days like that in a row.

She was led by the pristinely clothed nurse through the wards to 2B again, she suppressed the wince she felt at being here again. There were fewer cries now and her hard work had mostly emptied the ward since yesterday.

She was led up to the back where she could see several people. One was a large severe looking shinobi dressed in tight black shinobi shirt with identically coloured loose pants, he wore open toed black sandals, a colourful guy. Karin bet that he was real conversationalist.

The other one was a younger white haired girl who was hanging over the patient, her strangely patterned eyes riveted on him in concern. She wore pale red tunic with shorts and sandals. The last was a black haired boy who was around Karin's age, he was deathly pale as he lay in bed, only small movements showing he was still breathing.

"This is a test Karin-san to see if your ability can help chakra related illnesses. This boy injured his chakra network gates by using a technique far too advanced for him. If you please..." The nurse gestured forward smiling. The dark shinobi nearby merely looked on impassively, his dark eyes almost bottomless.

The girl was different her strange rippled eyes locked on Karin's after the Nurse's introduction. Now that she was closer she could see the girl clutching the boy's hand in a vice grip. A friend or maybe training partner?

Karin pulled her sleeve up reluctantly, so what if it was a boy her age it wouldn't make any difference. Her whole body tensed in anticipation as she placed her arm before his mouth. Eyes closed she waited for the unpleasant sensation. As the seconds past she cracked open an eye to the side.

The boy was completely unconscious unable to move. A dark shadow passed over Karin as the dark shinobi that had been standing impassively moved over behind the boy's bed. Karin took greater notice of the man, his face was very chiselled, almost like she imagined a noble's face would look.

He seized the boy's head in a grip and pulled his mouth open. Karin closed her eyes again as the felt the wet sensation of a mouth being forced onto her arm. The moment the teeth met her skin the usual pull of chakra began. It was over within moments and her arm was released.

She opened her eyes again as she smoothed down her sleeve over her fresh mark. The boy looked less pale that was certain and his breathing was much more even. She watched as the nurse ran through several hand seals. Her hands lit up with wispy green light that she then placed on the boy's chest and felt her way down.

"You have repaired the damage…as expected. His chakra network will stop pulling so much energy from his body now. Very good your ability is more impressive that we had previously imagined." The closed eye smile the nurse gave only made the bottom of Karin's stomach drop out. So now they would be even more interested in using her at any opportunity. The nurse began to walk away from the patient with a quick purposeful stride, "Come now Karin-san there is more to do…"

Karin made to follow the clinical women before to her own surprise a small hand grabbed her own. She looked back with a flinch, this had never happened before!

"Thank you! You helped my friend Muku!" It was the strangely eyed girl from before, her eyes were tearful and grateful. Nobody had ever thanked her before! What was she? She couldn't be like everyone else she knew…was she like Naruto then? Behind her Karin could see the grim looking man sitting by the boy's bedside paying the girl's actions no mind.

Too stunned to say anything Karin could only stare in confusion at the white haired girl. The girl forged ahead regardless of the strange response and smiled brightly.

"My name is Ryūzetsu! What's yours?" Karin could only gape in disbelief, this had never happened before…

"Karin…I have to go now…" Karin turned away to follow after her handler, the silence of her thoughts almost deafening.

"Bye Karin!" Ryūzetsu's reply echoed after her as she left the ward room. Karin passed through the exit looking for the nurse, but an iron claw of a hand grabbed her forearm in a strong grip and hauled her aside. It was her handler, the expression on her face was thunderous, all shadow and harsh angles.

"In the future I would suggest that you not converse with one of the few holders of an honoured bloodline of Kusa. Foreigners like you are not fit to speak with them…" A tight bruising squeeze of her arm punctuated her statements, Karin tried to stop any tears from forming as she was hauled along to her next destination.

She realized that for every good person there was another bad one waiting around the corner. Karin knew then that her impression of Kusa was correct, people like Ryūzetsu and Naruto were the exception not the rule. She felt a single tear escape her grasp as it flew from her eye into the air. It twinkled sadly as she left it behind.

* * *

Naruto sat quietly in the shadows of the alley, his eyes fixed on the entrance waiting for Karin to emerge from the hospital. He had always been told by grandpa that hospitals were where people went to stop things from hurting, for healing.

This place…it had caused so much harm to his new friend it didn't deserve that title. It traded in suffering, instead of suffering the consequences of their actions of their choices in life the ninja pushed all their burdens onto a young girl barely holding herself together.

It made the boiling rage from this morning resurface, taking a few breaths he suppressed the feeling. Blind revenge would solve nothing here and neither could the Kyuubi, would Karin feel some great satisfaction from wild actions like that? Somehow he knew she wouldn't want that…

What Karin needed was to be free of all this. To be able to make her own choices, not those forced by circumstance and the power of others. His eyes narrowed, he would make that a reality, maybe not today, tomorrow or the day after but he would definitely save her.

It was dusk now, the sky overhead was dark orange with the sun light reflecting from the languid clouds. Naruto liked that colour, it appealed to him it was honest with a hint of mischief.

His eyes flickered down to the entrance again as the girl he had been waiting for plodded out. She looked bone tired, not quite as bad as the night before but still bad. He was glad that he had gotten some food for them in that moment. Ideals were all well and good when you could eat well.

He waited for her to make it away from the Shinobi headquarters building before running to her side.

"Karin!"

"Naruto…I didn't expect…" Her tired gaze dipped down slightly in shyness, he could guess she probably wasn't expecting him to stick around. She would know better once he had shown otherwise.

He smiled brightly in response and pulled up his poncho slightly revealing the large sack of rice he had "earned".

She smiled weakly before frowning, her red brows knitting together.

"Where did you find that? Did you buy it?" Her voice was tired and scratchy with an undertone of concern.

He glanced around, they had been steadily walking out to the outskirts of the village. He couldn't see anyone nearby amongst the ramshackle housing.

"I…took it." Her expression was suddenly very scared as she stopped walking, he was surprised shouldn't she be disgusted? "Yesterday you were so weak and you didn't have anything real to eat in your house…so I thought…" He gestured helplessly.

"Naruto, taking it isn't the problem, it's if they catch you! They could do horrible things to you…the ninja here are law, if one of them caught you..." She looked truly terrified then.

"I'm really fast…I don't think anyone saw me!" Naruto grinned, he felt a hint of pride bubbling at the edge of mind.

"No matter how fast you think you are the ninja are faster! I don't want you getting hurt for me like that!" Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears as her small hands seized the heavy wool of his poncho in a vice grip. Naruto couldn't help but be slightly speechless nobody had been quiet so concerned for him before.

"Ah…okay. I'll be more careful!" He scratched the back of his head eyes closed shut in embarrassment. A moment later Naruto opened his eyes with a serious intent in his eyes, "But you still need to eat more…it's not safe for you to keep doing this. If I can't…steal it then what else can I do?"

Karin smiled slightly at his promise, she began walking slowly with a considering expression on. Her gaze was a hundred miles away focused on some far distant point.

"Mama had scrolls on some things…I think one was on plants and stuff. Maybe you could find things to eat in the woods. I never tried to because…well, because of my work." She looked pulled down by some invisible weight, either by her feelings or physical exhaustion Naruto didn't know.

He put his arm under her own to support her as he slowed his stride to her own. She smiled wanly at him in gratitude.

It didn't take them too long to make it back to the house. He left Karin to go in first to change while he ran about looking for some firewood. An old tin bucket also served to bring in some fresh water from the well.

Karin was looking much better with a warm cover over her shoulders and a hearty fire to keep her company.

Naruto set aside his dirty clothes so he could boil the rice. He used a pot hanging over the fire, as he stirred the rice through the water. He could only thank grandpa for being so lazy as to make a six year old cook food for him. He didn't know much but he knew enough to survive.

He could see Karin watching on from the corner of his eye, he could feel her strangely intense gaze on him.

"Your staring pretty hard...have I done something wrong?" He smiled disarmingly and tried how cooked the rice was.

She twitched and fumbled with her glasses before glancing away. "It's just…nobodies cooked here since Mama…"

He watched her sadly, if anything she seemed confused with her own feelings. Not that Naruto could help her there, he was just trying to ignore what had happened to his own grandpa only a week ago. He suddenly felt the urge to tell her, to make her realize she wasn't alone.

"…I…I used to be a monk…sort of. I guess grandpa tried to teach me how but I'm pretty dense when it comes to philoshica…philo...that thing where you think about stuff." Naruto hesitated, as if giving words to events would somehow make them more real, "But that's all gone now. He died trying to protect me, now I'm all alone I guess."

"That's not true!" Her eyes were wide behind her black framed glasses, a second passed as she got more embarrassed at her outburst, "…You can stay with me…s-so you won't be lonely!" She nodded as if it was already decided.

Naruto smiled, nobody had ever made him feel more welcome other than grandpa. His thoughts turned to the ninja that came to 'collect' her this morning.

"Karin…about this morning. I'm going to get stronger for certain! I'll stop the ninja from forcing you to do anything." He deflated and looked down at his lap, bravado was great but promises and real action were different things. "…I just need to know how."

She fiddled with her glasses again, "Y-your chakra is really strong, I've felt it…today I could even feel it from far away, your way stronger than anyone I've sensed before…" She seemed embarrassed as she fiddled with her cover.

"Yeah power is great and all but what does it matter if I can't use it? To me it just feels like water flowing all over the place, and every time I try to control the flow it just slips through my fingers…" He felt depressed at his own lack of progress, today for the first day of serious training had been useful but not nearly enough!

He flinched as he remembered the rice, he quickly ladled it out into the small bowls and handed one to Karin.

"I could help sense your chakra while you try…" She offered shyly her red hair forming a curtain over her glasses, her chopsticks held in a hesitant hand.

"Sure if you want, maybe you can tell what I'm doing wrong!" He almost got carried away in his enthusiasm before he remembered the bowl of rice in his hands, "But let's wait till after we eat, best to do it on a full stomach neh?"

The rice was plain but filling, Karin looked like she had some more colour in her skin for the first time since meeting her. Then again she had been half starved and exhausted for most of that time. He hadn't felt like this since the temple was destroyed, it was a comforting feeling.

"You want to give it a go now?" He asked enthused at the idea of getting someone's help, Karin nodded and shuffled closer to him. He took a small scrap of paper and placed it against his forehead. He concentrated intently on his chakra trying to will it into position, he could feel it rebelling in his grasp. He almost lost all concentration when a small hand touched his chest.

He ignored the feeling and remained intent on making the piece of paper stick to his brow. It was tough going but he was definitely beating out his previous time! Maybe the outdoor wind made it harder?

The scrap of paper finally fell away as his concentration was exhausted, he started breathing deeply as he realized he had been holding his breath.

"Well?" It came out as a half gasped question much to his own embarrassment.

"Hmmm?" Languid half sighted eyes peaked at him from over black framed glasses, her hand still placed on his chest. Karin came back to herself with a start and filched away, her cheeks flaming red. "Ehh! Y-yes?"

Naruto could only raise his eyebrow and the weird behaviour. Girls were strange. "You were going to tell me how I did?"

"Oh…right yes. Well you're doing okay, all the ninja I've felt could control chakra like a fine cord. Yours? Not so much it's like you try to direct a wave of water with a hand but it doesn't quiet work." She thought intently for a moment, some confidence coming back to her as she fumbled with her glasses, "Maybe you need to do bigger things…I think trying to stick the paper is too small for someone like you, for a wave you need an equally big problem…"

"Hmm, maybe try stick a rock to your palm or feet? That might be easier with how much chakra you have. Also where did you learn to do it?"

"It's one of the few training techniques grandpa showed me. Anyway thank you Karin that helped a lot!" Naruto gave his best smile in appreciation. A little advice could go miles.

"…I didn't really do anything anyway…" Her cheeks were once again red, was Karin ill? That would be bad!

"Are you okay Karin? You look like you have a fever!" He shuffled closer and placed a hand on her forehead to check her temperature. She felt even warmer, that was bad for certain!

"Ehhh-ehh-EHHH!" Suddenly he was flat on his back two outstretched hands having pushed him over. She was even redder and breathing heavily. What the heck?

"Ahh! I'm s-sorry!" She was now helping him back up into a sitting position, her hands securely pulling on his arms.

"Ehhh? It's okay…no harm done…" He gave her several more quizzical glances, girl really were weird…

It wasn't long before Karin went to bed, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up with her. Naruto followed soon after patching together a place to sleep from the few free pillows in the house. It wasn't ideal but it was better than sleeping outside!

As he lay awake watching the last cinders of the fire go out he could only wonder what the future would bring. He knew he would be looking for more chakra techniques, it didn't matter what type they were, ninja, monk or whatever. Anything to get stronger.

Compared to a week ago things were really looking up, he had a new friend and a place to stay. It was only the first few steps but it was something. He now had real responsibilities rather than just a need to find out the truth about what happened at the temple. Karin needed him, for now it was enough to drive him forward.

He had weeks, months and maybe even years of training ahead of him. He just hoped he was fast enough, Karin couldn't afford to wait on him forever…

,

,

 **Author Note:**

Well took a little bit of time to come out, but it's the longest chapter by far. As for this chapter Karin has some good development. Meeting Ryuzetsu actually turns from what should be an uplifting experience for her into a destructive one. I wanted that scene to show some of that last childish hope regarding other people's good intentions perishing.

As for Naruto he hates playing Ninja but he knows fine well he can't charge in there acting like a Samurai. He's small and relatively weak. The Kyuubi is not a weapon to be used in his hands, not yet anyway.

As for Karin's reaction to Naruto's chakra it's only natural. She's actually sensing the legacy chakra of Asura as she did with Sasuke. She's literally the only other character in the whole manga other than Sasuke & Naruto that could sense it. She just didn't know what she was sensing. To her it's like and exotic heady dazzling feeling that can be overwhelming, that's why she's acting like she has, not necessarily because she's attracted to Naruto, that's silly they are way too young for that!

I hope you liked Naruto's training scenes and Karin's advice on chakra control. I hope it felt like natural progression.

I hope everyone liked the chapter. We will be seeing some time skips of about a couple of weeks or so.

 **Pls R &R**


	5. Chapter 5: Uncomfortable Stealth!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

 **Author Prenote:**

X: Technically there won't be a Yami Naruto because this Naruto uses everything at his disposal especially his darker impulses. In his eyes they all have a time and a place, that means he isn't going to be suppressing a part of himself. Canon Naruto just denied everything that happened to him, sure he "accepted" it but somehow I don't think you can just accept being alienated for no reason without even a simple "I'm sorry".

General Guest Reviews: Training chapters will be interspersed Naruto & Karin will learn things along the way, Kusa isn't going to be one long training arc it's going to be a bit more complex than that. This next chapter actually takes place a month or so after the last one. So I'm skipping forward but not years at a time.

Day by day updates is something I really want to avoid as that stagnates a fic. I want to move forward quickly but not so much that it loses cohesion. Hopefully we will be out of Kusa in a chapter or two.

As for pairing that can change over time, I'm not completely certain what Naruto will be like in the future, the same goes for Karin. In most cases it writes itself.

 **Chapter 5: Uncomfortable Stealth Secrets!**

 **Two Months Later…**

The night was at its strongest as it darkened the skies, if not for the twinkle of the stars it would be a dead black. It was a new moon tonight so the night was at its darkest. Tonight was a night of action for two young infiltrators. The objective was knowledge…or well anything they could get their hands on.

Their mark was the scribe's corps libraries, a minimally defended building where general jutsu scrolls and other material were copied and mass produced. No doubt they had bet on the fact they might find some material that could be useful.

A silent shadow zipped past a vigilant Kusa chunin in the dead of the night. He twitched at the sudden passing of wind behind him, he stared down the corridor behind him into the dead blackness of the library.

"...So creepy…I hate this guard duty…" His voice carried a hint of fear, even a trained shinobi knew well to fear the dark.

Crouched above the clueless chunin the two young infiltrators held their breath as the lamp light that the shinobi carried receded into the gloom.

Two sighs of relief sounded simultaneously as both took a moment breath easily. Well at least one of them did.

"Karin stop squirming…the straps won't last if you keep doing it." Naruto's voice came out a furious whisper as he hissed backwards at his companion and partner. A pair of red eyes peaked over his shoulder as they glared at him through a set of black framed glasses.

"It's not my fault you came up with this stupid plan! How was this ever meant to work?" Karin whispered back in a furious growl, she was nearly biting the back of his neck with comically jagged teeth.

Naruto reddened slightly, it had been a good plan at the time, so the execution was just a little bit off, fact was it was still working!

"I'm the brawn and you're the one to direct me! We wouldn't have even gotten in here if you couldn't sense the ninja's chakra and suppress my own at the same time…" Her cheeks puffed up in indignation at the position she was in even with Naruto's praise.

She was currently strapped securely to Naruto's back by several leather straps. She was also holding on tightly with her arms around his neck. It was definitely not a position she was enjoying, she felt so useless being carried around even if it was kind of necessary considering Naruto couldn't suppress his chakra much.

Karin pouted again snarling silently into his back. She twitched when she realized she still had a job to do. Focusing intently placing her hands together into a clapped position, it helped her concentrate on other chakras especially when she was trying to cloak Naruto with her own chakra.

It was the result of her own close proximity to Naruto over several weeks, she realized that if she put some effort into it she could push her own chakra into Naruto. This was definitely not the result of her own fixation on his chakra, and even more so it was definitely not the result of her trying to play with it!

Still it had the unique result of blanking his chakra even to her, it made him feel more like her than his own dazzling self. It wasn't perfect of course it came with the massive drawback of having to share direct contact with him, meaning they couldn't be separated while using the technique.

A month ago she hadn't even had the strength to do anything when she came back to her home, but now that Naruto had been bringing in so much food she could definitely feel herself growing stronger. She still pretended to be weak at the hospital of course, it wouldn't be a good idea to let them think they could use her more.

Karin cracked open an eye to stare at his clean golden hair, after the first few weeks of enduring his particular brand of mucky mud she basically poured freezing water over him and scrubbed him clean.

She still couldn't believe how strong and fast he was getting, he had shown her with great pride his first original 'technique'. Okay so it wasn't really a technique so much so as Naruto learning to direct the deluge that was his chakra in 'one' direction. A normal chakra user wouldn't be able to replicate it simply because they would exhaust themselves in seconds while trying to. Even then Karin wasn't sure if someone could recreate it, the tight threaded networks most ninja had were nothing to the canals that Naruto had in his body.

Naruto's technique was basically just him channelling too much chakra into a surface. He noticed quite quickly when he started using the enhanced training techniques they had dreamed up. Stones cracked and tree bark splintered. Let's just say it didn't take much for Naruto to come up with an ingenious way to infuse his blows and attacks with the ability to shatter and break things with impunity.

If Karin was honest it was a terrifying technique, at its strongest she tried to imagine what he could do to a human. The images of splintered trees and shattered boulders flickered in her mind's eye. Somehow she doubted many ninja could survive it.

Still as useful as it was it wouldn't matter unless he could actually connect with a ninja. From what Naruto had told her that could be a much more difficult task. He had told her all about the ninja that had attacked his grandpa and him, how they had vanished from sight just like his caretaker. Faster than the untrained eye could follow.

That was the power they needed to crack. There had to be some secret to their movements, was it just because of how much more powerful they were or was it a learnable skill?

"Ugh…how are we going to find anything in all of this?" He was right, scroll after scroll mostly useless. Either they talked about concepts they had no frame of reference for or it was more esoteric theoretical knowledge. And it wasn't like they had all night to search. She could feel the ninja patrols moving around at the edge of her perception. They were lazy but they still followed their pre-set watches.

"We don't even know the name of the technique they use…" She could feel Naruto's depression through his chakra, it was a skill she had picked up but it seemed she could only tell what Naruto was feeling because she was very familiar with his chakra now days. Other people just felt confusing.

Looking up the aisles she noticed something that had escaped them in the dark. They were noted with kanji.

"Naruto look there, the aisles are marked by rank. You remember the ninja ranks don't you? D through to A…and I guess S but they won't have anything on that level here…" She pointed at the helpful signs sticking out from the massive shelves. They were currently walking down an aisle marked 'B' probably a bit advanced for them all things considered.

"Right…so I guess we should be looking in 'D' right? Cause nearly every ninja we've ever seen can do that super speed thingy so it should be pretty common then?" Naruto glanced back over his shoulder at her, his blue eyes inquisitive.

"I suppose so…I'm guessing we should just search the next aisle over. There might be some school books we can find too." At Naruto's quizzical look, "I know they might not have much but they could definitely have the basic information about chakra we are missing out on…"

It wasn't long before they found the largest section in the whole building. The D-rank section was huge and had its own separate hall, there were also lots of huge archaic printers nearby to create more copies whenever a new class joined the Kusa academy. Karin guessed that even if it was low level knowledge it still needed to be tightly regulated.

They pocketed a few books on basic chakra theory and hand seals. It wasn't long before they came across the few jutsu scrolls in the section. There were plenty of copies so they took as many different ones as they could find. Their packs were full before they decided their midnight excursion had been a success.

Sneaking past the rest of the patrols was again a simple waiting game, one move forward and wait for them to pass before moving on again. The pattern repeated itself until they were far enough from the area to feel confident enough to race on home.

Naruto couldn't believe how easy all of this had been with Karin helping. Honestly he had been thinking about doing this on his own, had he done so he would have been caught seven times over by now. Karin's chakra sense thingy was a really amazing skill, plus the fact she could even hide his own chakra was seriously useful considering he couldn't control his chakra that well yet.

Next to her he almost felt embarrassed, sure he was the better fighter but in this context Karin's skills really showed themselves to be something special. Hell if she was strong enough she probably wouldn't need him tagging along, she could manage this on her own.

It was near the middle of the night when they returned and Karin went to sleep almost immediately, that left Naruto to clean up and organise hiding places for all their ill-gotten gains. Obviously they had to be careful if any of the ninja ever decided to inspect the house, stolen scrolls and other materials left lying around would be a dead giveaway.

An hour later Karin's small house was illuminated by a single guttering candle. Naruto could be seen slouched tiredly as he poured over the scrolls. He once again tried to focus his bleary eyes and winced at the tiredness. He couldn't sleep so he decided he would look though some of the scrolls they had acquired.

The Bunshin, Henge and the Kawarimi jutsu it seemed were pretty standard fare for any ninja in the elemental nations. They were very old techniques known to all the five nations, still they sounded useful on paper. He searched through the other scrolls before he figured he had hit gold.

The Shunshin jutsu, an accelerated movement technique capable of making it appear to a bystander that the user had simple disappeared. It was however a trick, somehow the jutsu allowed you to supercharge the chakra in a user's body for a brief burst. There was also a small note at the bottom that explained how enhancing the eyes with chakra would also allow you to perceive that level of movement whereas normally it would be impossible.

It sounded great in practice but in reality reading it and doing it were two very different things. Enhancing the eyes? Was it literally just pushing chakra into your eyes? Somehow Naruto guessed there was way more to it than that. He knew formless chakra would do little damage to his body but uncontrolled chakra floating about in his eyes wasn't going to do much other than give him eye ache.

It was the same with his first original technique. Pushing chakra out in an uncontrolled fashion would do little other than make him tired, but building it up until it was a rising wave of dense power allowed it to shatter rock and splinter wood.

Naruto had already grasped the basics of enhanced chakra based movement from his taijutsu training with the old man. But enhancement of this kind would be seriously hard to do, a full body enhancement? He could barely imagine the concentration needed for that. Maybe that's why they could only do it for short bursts.

Well he knew what he would be training over the next few weeks. Hopefully the minimal explanations would be enough alongside the weirdo handseals.

He glanced backwards over his shoulder at Karin's sleeping form a few meters away from him. It had been tough to know she was having to suffer every day like this but they didn't have much choice in the matter. Until they were strong enough to flee there wasn't much else they could do but endure.

Still it was frustrating to him, they had both come a long way but it was not nearly enough. Especially with Karin's time completely taken up with her 'duties' it left precious little time for her to train safely without stressing herself.

He sighed to himself massaging his tired eyes. He wouldn't be getting much else read tonight, it would have to wait until tomorrow.

Collapsing into his coldish futon next to Karin's bed he tried once again to sleep soundly. He hoped for a dreamless sleep, that the nightmares of the temple would stay quiet tonight.

* * *

The next morning was a frantic affair of thrown clothes and half eaten breakfasts. Karin watched as Naruto dived out the back window clutching nearly six scrolls to his chest. Pouting she stared at his half eaten food, did he have so enthusiastic? Leaving food while in their situation was a sin. Hmph well he can eat it for dinner when he gets back!

Gengyo had stopped coming to pick her up nearly a month ago after she had started presenting herself at the hospital before he was set to 'escort' her. It was galling to do but they had secrets to hide now and having Gengyo come snooping around every morning was just asking to be found out.

Finishing up she closed up the house and left at a brisk pace. It was early enough that the sun hadn't greeted them fully yet, still the birds were singing merrily in the sky and the wind was warm enough to be pleasant. Too bad not everything was right in her world.

But some things had gone right.

Another change in her life had happened, much like Naruto someone else had forced themselves into her life. True they weren't living with her like a certain golden haired train-aholic. The white haired girl that thanked her before had become the second light in her life. Ryūzetsu was her first girlfriend, she had never been friends with any girls before and it was definitely different than being with Naruto.

With Naruto she couldn't help but feel drawn to him, it wasn't just his chakra that was so dazzling. His mannerisms and smiles never failed to make her feel lighter for the day. She also knew why he was trying so hard, it made her feel embarrassed just thinking about it. Even so in her heart of hearts she couldn't help but be beyond grateful to him.

Ryūzetsu was different, their friendship wasn't quiet as deep and she tended to be quiet ignorant of the real nature of ninja kind and the village. But Karin didn't have the heart to tear and stamp out the innocence in her friend. Even if it was foolish it was still something to be protected until there was no other choice.

If Karin were to put it into words Ryūzetsu was an escape for her. When they talked together or walked about in the village whenever Karin had time, it was like she could pretend she was a normal girl with her friend playing about, just laughing and having fun.

For Karin those times with her were some of the most precious she had, she would trade them for nothing.

She was nearly into the village proper when a familiar head of white hair swung down backwards from the forest canopy, the long hair forming a shimmering curtain of silvery white hair.

"Karin-chan! I knew I'd find you here!" Her friend back flipped with alacrity down to the ground and started walking alongside her. She was wearing a finely made tunic shorts with banded designs, her sandles were bright red. Ryūzetsu was wearing a very happy smile, so unlike what she was so used to. "Do you live near here? I tried to follow you back yesterday but I ran out of time. My family would have be really angry if I'd stayed out longer…"

"Ryu-san! Ah you surprised me there. You shouldn't be following me home in the dark it can get dangerous." Karin scowled at her half-heartedly before pouting shyly as she fingering her glasses, "And y-yes I do live here, just up the hill at the top."

"I knew it. See I followed you here and you didn't even know it. I'm getting better as a ninja!" Karin smiled outwardly while berating herself internally, she had to be more alert, the next time someone followed her it might not be someone as benign as Ryu-chan. Nobody could discover that Naruto was living with her.

There was silence for a bit as Ryūzetsu looked slightly awkward before asking her next unfortunately loaded question, "You're going to the hospital again aren't you? I didn't realize that anyone so young had a job there. Are your powers that amazing?"

Karin bit back a wince, she didn't want her friend to go digging sticking her nose into things better left alone. She forced a smile, "I'm the best healer in Kusa. Remember I helped your friend Muku, nobody else could have done what I did. That means I have to work at the hospital, they can't go a day without me…"

"That's so amazing. You're only my age and Kusa already sees you as an important person!" Ryūzetsu looked depressed for a few moments, "Muku wants to be a hero of Kusa, to bring it back to glory…but I…I'm not as good as him." She looked like she was trying mightily not to look bitter, "He picks up everything so fast that they call him a prodigy!"

"But Ryu-san don't you have a…kekkei genkai, doesn't that make up for it?" Karin tried to remember the term, didn't it refer to some kind of inherited ability from your ancestors?

"Yeah but it's useless. My clan just says it's not important unless someone really important to you dies. They wouldn't tell me why though…" Karin could almost see the dark curtain of depression hanging over her friend. Karin smiled and decided she would try her best to cheer up her friend later today.

Karin nudged her friend and smiled brightly, "Listen the days are getting longer, we should have some time before it gets dark. Do you want to go to the market with me?" Sure she would be very tired by that point but Ryu-chan's smile was worth more to Karin than that.

Instantly it was like someone had flipped a switch, and a bursting smile broke out across her face. "Really!? Okay! We can look at the ninja tools, I heard one of the new merchants had brought some new swords from iron country, they're supposed to be the best!"

With Ryūzetsu practically bouncing all the way into the village Karin's spirits were definitely buoyed. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad, she just had to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel. She just hoped she found the time to make good on her promise.

* * *

The training clearing as it had come to be known was filled with splintered trees and large cracked boulders either shattered with what looked like titanic force or split with precision edged power. Amongst the debris Naruto stood with a very constipated scowl on his face as his hands jammed in the same set of seals he had been practising for the last few hours.

Naruto had nearly blacked out from the overwhelming feeling of sickness when he first attempted the Shunshin no jutsu. The speed had been impossible to control to the point of extreme disorientation, combine that with blunt force trauma of hitting a tree and he had nearly knocked himself out.

Successive attempts at the jutsu hadn't been helpful to him. True he had been able to avoid vomiting up his breakfast but that was all he had managed. The speed did not get more manageable the more he tried it, within the first hour he had realized that brute forcing this training would get him somewhere sometime around when he got old and grey.

The jutsu itself did nothing to aid perception, the description did say it was most useful for running away from a dangerous attack or fight, not for battling the enemy directly. So was the jutsu he saw those ninja using different from this one? Was it a better version?

If only he could speed his perception somehow.

For the last hour he had tried pushing chakra into his eyes and brain and it _had_ helped. Just nowhere near enough to make a real difference. He knew then that he would need to somehow shape and control that chakra instead of just pushing it in and leaving it.

"Damn it! What the heck do I know about eyes or how they work?" He grumbled glaring at a particularly badly exploded boulder. He didn't really like the idea of messing about with it until something happened. What if he accidently made himself blind wouldn't that be the ultimate stupid move?

Maybe some of the school books had something on the eyes? Yeah that might work, learn how they work first then try something!

Deciding to leave the shunshin for now he decided he would work on some of the other jutsu they had attained. The kawarimi was way too much like the shunshin for his brain to even consider trying it at the moment. Henge seemed like a really useful technique, think of all the disguises you could use without needing expensive supplies! If he and Karin learned it they could even escape with minimal hassle. Sure it wouldn't make pursuit any less dangerous but the initial escape would be way easier.

Naruto pulled out the scroll and pulled it open, he pinned it to the ground with several rocks. The description of the jutsu was pretty simple, think of an image what you wanted to become and then complete the hand seals. It did say that a very strong image was needed to complete the technique, a weak focus here would cause mediocre or useless results.

A memorable image? Grandpa in his robes half smiling in the morning light, his pristine white and green robes and rugged face etched into his mind. All that remained of him were memories, at the very least Naruto would keep him alive in his mind.

Focusing on the image he completed the handseals, Dog, Boar and Ram. He could feel his unruly chakra flow into the forms imperfectly. Like throwing a rock into a pool he created ripples but not the waves he wanted.

Opening his eyes he watched as a massive plume of white smoke exploded around him. A moment passed and it cleared. Looking down he could see misshapen robes and comical almost cartoonish body within them. He was taller that was for certain but he didn't need a mirror to know he looked nothing like grandpa.

"Heh…looks like this could take a while." He rubbed the back of his neck as he released the technique. Sure he had managed to do _something_ first time so he should be proud, but somehow he felt nothing. How can you be prideful of something nearly _every_ ninja can do? He was badly behind the other dangerous chakra users, he had never felt it more intensely. Now that he had actually tried some of the most _basic_ techniques he knew what he was up against.

In the past month or so he had read some of the general history books concerning a few of the most powerful ninja. These ninja, the Kage seemed to be larger than life. One of these guys, the first to be named Kage was called Hashirama the first leader of the village of Konoha. Apparently with his powers over chakra he could remake the land, grow entire forests from nowhere and overpower Biju like the one he himself carried.

It honestly felt like some inflated legend but somehow Naruto knew it wasn't an exaggeration. The Fouth Hokage had quelled the Kyuubi enough to seal it within him, and if even a tiny part of what he believed the Kyuubi was capable of was real then it showed the near impossible gulf between a kid like him and someone skilled enough to do that.

As long as that gulf existed their freedom was not guaranteed. He couldn't stop until he could face off anyone that would try to use them or hurt them.

It was that simple.

* * *

It was late afternoon in the market place, merchants and customers were bustling about buying and selling, all trying to get the best bargain. It was even busier than usual with the new caravan that had rolled into town. Everyone was out taking a look at the new goods.

A particularly drained Karin was following her friend through the throng of people, Ryūzetsu's hair stood out like a beacon to her through the press of people.

"Come on Karin! This stall has some crystals…Ohh", her friend could barely contain herself as she stared at the large geode that was sat proudly on display. Karin had to admit it really was pretty. Around it the merchant has arrange various necklaces with brightly coloured shards of crystal tied on.

Ryūzetsu examined them with barely disguised enthusiasm, the woman behind the stall smiled happily. Karin sighed, Ryu-chan was a truly terrible haggler she was far too good hearted to truly push a merchant hard enough to get a good deal.

"Come on Ryu-san before the nice merchant eats you alive…" A muted cry of dissatisfaction sounded out behind her as she dragged her friend away from what was sure to be a rip off.

Honestly what would Ryu-chan do without her?

Even as she dragged her friend away she could see the looks she was garnering from the villagers around her. It hadn't been easy being friends with Ryūzetsu, her friend had no idea but Karin had been confronted several times about her friendship with the girl. She had come away with bruises every time but it would take more than sticks and stones to force her to give up the only thing remotely normal in her life.

They spent another half hour browsing the other stalls, if Karin was perfectly honest with herself very little of it interested her. Well mostly, some of the exotic weapons imported from Iron Country captured her attention. Still even her untrained eye could tell the heavily engraved katana and kusarigama sets were little more than display pieces for foolish nobles with more money than sense. Still she entertained the thought of somehow buying a weapon for Naruto, it was a silly thought considering she had no means to speak of.

"Come on stop day dreaming Karin-chan! It's time to go home, it's getting dark!" Ryūzetsu broke her away from the silly thoughts she was having, honestly she should be day dreaming about a big meal not a useless lump of metal.

"Ahh, Sorry! I'm coming!" They left in a hurry following the path out of town, all around them the market was beginning to close up. Most seemed to pack up their stalls for security, there were few indeed that felt confident in leaving their goods in the night.

Soon it was time to part ways as Ryūzetsu lived on the outskirts in a modest clan compound. Still it was within the village proper unlike Karin's small house. She watch slightly wistfully as her friend jogged away as the sun set around her, she turned and called back.

"Bye Karin-chan! Next time I should bring you to meet Muku I'm sure he would be really happy to meet you!" Her friend waved happily as she ran.

Karin suppressed a wince and waved back, her friend was in many ways complete naïve about the world. She probably couldn't conceive of any reason why Karin might not want to see or even speak to Muku. If she was honest she didn't want to meet any of her patients again...ever.

Looking up the hill towards where her home was she could see the shadows already set themselves upon the land as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. It had been a tiring day and Karin was looking forward to rest and finding out how Naruto got on.

* * *

Throwing open the door to her humble home she was greeted by a domestic scene of Naruto crouched over a boiling pot of stew. He was stirring it carefully with an intense look of concentration.

"Karin! Your just in time, the stew is just perfect now!" It was a huge bright smile that greeted her when he noticed her. That never got old. Just having someone here to come home to…she couldn't put a value on it. He carefully started ladling out the stew as she took off her sandals, "That was the last of the rabbits, I'll need to find more tomorrow…"

He handed her the bowl carefully before sitting down at the low table, he smiled widely as he took the first sip. It was their staple diet now. She had forced him to swear not to steal anything else, of course that meant they needed to find other sources of food. He had taken to running down animals for 'training', Karin wasn't sure if she would define it like that. An absurd display of stamina? Yes, definitely.

"Karin…do you think the hospital will have any books on eyes?" That was an odd question, her red eyes pinned him.

"I guess…why the sudden interest? It's not exactly information most people want…" She probed for more information.

"Well…I tried out the Shunshin…its unusable for what I imagined. It's so fast I end up hitting trees more than anything. I need to figure out how to enhance my reaction times, that means somehow speeding up how fast I can see things." She could tell he was embarrassed asking for help, still she was glad Naruto felt he could ask her.

"Have you thought about not using your eyes? What about maybe sensing your surroundings like me?" Sure he might not have her sensitivity…well any sensitivity but still it was possible.

"Hmm…I didn't think of that." His face scrunched up as his eyes turned into slits, his chin jutted out as his hand seized it in a classic thinking pose. It took all of her control not to start giggling at his sudden childish look.

"Mmm I'm not sure that would work, I think it doesn't matter how I see it or sense it…its reacting in time to it that's impossible. Wait a minute…if that's true, then enhancing my eyes is mostly pointless…"

Karin had lost him at that point, wasn't it his eyes that couldn't track the movements of things around him?

"What'd you mean? Isn't the problem your eyes being too slow to move?" This time it was her face scrunched up in confusion.

"No…well sort of. I've got trouble with that, but some chakra and I can more or less get my eyes to move fast enough…it's umm. Jeez I can't think of a word for it!" He slurped on his stew until his bowl was empty, slapping it down with a gasp of satisfaction, he zoned out for a second.

"It's like when I used to fight grandpa, we would be fighting so fast that most of the time I didn't have to think about it. It was reflex! If I had to think about every little thing I would be really rubbish at fighting…"

"This though…I can't just rely on reflexes, I need to see what I'm doing and react to it. Every bit of ground is different, every situation will be different. With fighting, a lot of stuff happens just the same all the time. That's why you can rely on reflex. This not so much…"

Ah, she understood. It wasn't so much about the physical limitations but the mental ones. People could only think so quickly, seeing something didn't mean you could understand it and react appropriately in time even if the body was willing.

"You want to be able to think faster…Naruto I'm not sure you'll be able to do anything like that. To do that you'd need to know how your brain worked. Near as I can tell what you're thinking about might be impossible." Karin felt bad about raining on his idea, but somehow enhancing his brain to think faster sounded like fantasy. "I think the only way you'll get close to that is through normal practise. Chakra tends to flow along familiar lines, I can feel it inside you. The more you train the more chakra helps the user even without direction."

"So…what you're saying just to keep at it? That I should start seeing it more easily eventually…" He looked down, Karin could tell he was hoping for some quick avenue to strength. It made her feel bad that he was so desperate for power for her sake.

She smiled touching his ravaged and worn knuckles across the table.

"Don't worry you'll get it! I know you will."

A half-baked smile was her reward, did he have to be so serious? She wasn't going to disappear any time soon not now that someone cared about her.

With a deep sigh Karin took the bowls and started scrubbing them while her friend sulked. She was beginning to understand that boys tended to be really hard headed…or maybe that was just Naruto.

With a pout she declared it was definitely just Naruto…

 **Author note:**

Yep I'm not dead….yet. Meh I've been writing on and off for weeks now, work has just gutted my time, and what time I do have just gets absorbed with lazing about. Sad I know but oh well.

I'm really wanting to push this fic forward so we're looking at another time skip next chapter where things will really start moving.

Anyway I hope people liked the infiltration scene.

Read and review :p.


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